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KWAHU 

THE HOPI INDIAN BOY 

BY 
GEORGE NEWELL MORAN 



With twelve illustrations 

by Eliza Curtis and numerous pictures 

of objects in the Bureau of American 

Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution 

Washington, D. C. 




AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO 



Copyright, 1913, by 
GEORGE NEWELL MORAN 



Copyright, 1913, in Great Britai> 

KWAHU 
XV. P. I 



3 .1 7 15 



I 



■ PREFATORY NOTE 

This account of Kwahu the Hopi Indian Boy 
is to be regarded as something more than a 
story. It is a true portrayal, so far as modern 
ethnological research has disclosed, of life and 
manners in a very ancient American commu- 
nity before the coming of white men. It is be- 
lieved that its underlying educative value, no 
less than its inherent interest, will insure it a 
hearty welcome in the elementary grades of the 
public schools. 

The book was read in manuscript and edited 
for accuracy by Dr. Frederick W. Hodge, di- 
rector of the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian 
Institution, Washington, D.C. The introduc- 
tion was written by Dr. Jesse Walter Fewkes, 
of the same institution. To both these gentle- 
men, the author's thanks are herewith gratefully 
and sincerely extended. 

3 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction 9 

Part I. Childhood 

I. A Baby is Named 19 

II. In Mischief 28 

III. The Traders 37 

IV. Playing War 45 

V. KWAHU MADE LEADER 54 

VI. Buli the Butterfly and Kwewe ... 63 

VII. The Sacred Sipapu 72 

VIII. An Adventure with Kwewe 85 

IX. The Famine 91 

X. The Hunted and the Hunters . . . .103 

XI. Home Again 119 

Part II. Youth 



XII. KWAHU TELLS TABO A SECRET 



XIII. The Wuwutcimti . 

XIV. In Awatobi 
XV\i The Wedding . 

XVI. Building the Bride's House 



125 
135 
144 
•57 
171 



CONTENTS 



XVII. The Telling of Tales 

XVIII. Unrest and Danger 

XIX. A Battle at Walpi . 

XX. An Indian Revenge 

XXI. Happy . 



PAGE 
I 80 

194 

208 

225 

234 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FULL-PAGE PICTURES BY ELIZA CURTIS 



: A Signal from Kokop announced its Rising " 

• A Chorus of Cries from the Babies filled the Air " 
'The Women were getting ready for the Trading" 
1 His Body . . . seemed to hang in Mid Air" 

• She crawled down backwards to the Bottom " 

• He looked steadily at the Ferocious Animal " 
; An Indian Girl, sitting on the Ground" 

1 Perched on a Bowlder, he spent Hours in this Way " 

• He knew that he had received his Answer" . 

■ There, in the Big Vessel, was the Blue-Corn Maiden " 

■They saw the Arrow strike its Mark" . 

; And thus all the Men of Sikyatki perished " 



24 
29 

40 

56 

65 
89 

97 

127 

'55 
189 
210 
231 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF HOPI INDIAN HANDIWORK 

Smithsonian Institution, WasMngton, D.C. 

Prayer Plumes 
Walpi Water Jugs . 
Walpi Basins and Bowls 
Walpi Bowl with Handle 
Walpi Musical Instrument 
Walpi Baskets 
Hopi Indian Bone Needles 
Walpi Water Vases 
Meal Baskets from Walpi 
Wooden Instruments from Walpi 
Wristlets from Walpi 
Walpi Ladles 




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Zufii Water Bottle . 
Squirrel Sticks from Walpi 
Hopi Iridi \ Prayer Sticks 
Zufii Clay Pitcher . 
Zufii Bird Effigies . 
Medicine Boxes from Sikyatk 
Clay Images from Zufii . 
Zufii Mortar and Stone . 
Pigment Pots from Sikyatki 
Water Vase from Zufii . 
Headdress from Walpi . 
Sacred Effigies from Walpi 
Clay Statuettes from Walpi 
Clay Figures from Laguna 
Zuni Eating Bowls . 
Walpi Water Jars . 
Walpi Dance Ornaments 
Zufii Cooking Vessels 
Bone Instrument from Walpi 
Dance Rattles from Walpi 
Stone Axes from Zufii 
Vases from Sikyatki 
Necklace from Walpi 
Walpi Floor Mat . 
Hopi Indian Basket 
Moi i asin oi I lopi Indian 
Clay Vessel from Walpi , 



1 8. i 





4i 




45 


49. 53 




54 




61 


62, 


173 




63 




64 




66 




70 




7i 


7- 


. 82 




84 




9' 


102, 


134 


103, 


207 


9, 208, 


224 




119 




121 


5- 137. 


237 




128 


•35- 


144 




'57 




180 




"94 




196 




224 



INTRODUCTION 

The Hopi Indians live in the northeastern 
part of Arizona. They are called pueblo or 
village Indians- because, instead of having wig- 
wams or tipis, they live in composite stone houses. 

The first mention of the Hopi in history, as 
far as known, appears in Spanish records. In 
the year 1540, Coronado, an official of New 
Spain (now Mexico), having arrived at Cibola 
(Zuni), sent a number of his soldiers under 
command of Pedro de Tovar, with a Catholic 
priest, to the northwest in search of other vil- 
lages with treasures. Tovar did not find riches, bu t 
he did discover the pueblos now known as Hopi. 

Kwahu is supposed to have lived shortly be- 
fore the coming of Coronado to Zuiii. While 
he is only an imaginary boy, the story attempts 
to give, as far as possible, a true account of the 

9 



10 INTRODUCTION 

Hopi Indian life of the time. Brave little Kwahu 
is as worthy of a place in our hearts as Cinderella, 
Robin Hood, and our other story friends. 

The records tell us that the Spaniards found 
four Hopi villages in 1583. One of these, Oraibi 
by name, still remains approximately where it 
then was, while the ruins of Walpi, where 
Kwahu is supposed to have lived, may be seen 
in the foothills below the present site. 

Ruins of several of the other pueblos ascribed 
to Hopi clans have been discovered in recent 
years. Some of them are near where the Hopi 
now live, others are far away. Pueblo ruins are 
found as far north as the Rio Colorado, and as 
far west as Flagstaff, Arizona. They occur as 
far south as the Verde Valley, and the Tonto 
Basin, and their eastern extension is the Rio 
Grande, in New Mexico. The pottery of the 
ancient Hopi pueblos near Walpi is the finest 
in texture and decoration found north of Mexico, 
and much of it has been dug up in several of 
these <»1<1 villages. 



INTRODUCTION 11 

Arizona has, in various localities, high, rocky 
tablelands called " mesas." It was on top of 
these mesas that some of the ancient pueblos 
were built. The groups of buildings were sev- 
eral stories high. There were many rooms, all 
of them small, — probably because wood for 
timbers was scarce. 

The houses were arranged like terraces. The 
roofs of the lowest row served as front yards for 
the houses above. The roofs of these were the 
front yards of the houses above, and so on. The 
lower stories had no lateral doors. The people 
climbed in and out through a hole in the roof, 
by means of ladders. The upper houses were, 
and still are, reached by ladders or by steps 
built against the outside walls and resting on 
the roofs of the houses below. 

The fireplaces were shallow boxes in the cor- 
ners, or pits in the middle of the floor. In the 
latter case, the smoke worked out through the 
hole in the roof. The floors were paved with 
stone or plastered with adobe mud. 



12 INTRODUCTION 

The group of houses forming a Hopi pueblo 
was oblong, square with a central court, or ar- 
ranged in rows. The shape was modified by 
the form of the mesa on top of which the houses 
were built, or by the configuration of the foothills. 

Hopi is a short form of the word.Hopitu. It 
means "peaceful ones." The full Indian name 
of the tribe is Hopitu Shinumu, or " peaceful 
all people." 

The Hopi have always been peaceful, although 
brave. If unfriendly tribes attacked their homes 
or destroyed their scant crops, they would fight 
for their rights. They have, however, never 
sought trouble with other tribes, nor fought 
unless compelled to do so. 

The Spaniards estimated that the Hopi Indi- 
ans numbered about 50,000, which was probably 
too large At the present time there are less 
than 2000 in all. 

As we see them to-day, the Hopi are rather 
short, but they are muscular and quick-motioned. 
They have reddish brown skin, high cheek bones, 



INTRODUCTION 13 

slanting, dark eyes, and straight, broad noses. 
Their mouths are large, but with a gentle expres- 
sion. When babies, they are fastened to cradle 
boards, consequently the lower back part of the 
head is somewhat flattened. 

Usually the hair is straight and black. Some- 
times it is brownish, and often it is wavy. 
Most of the men wear their hair " banned " in 
front, or cut in "terraces" on each side. The 
long hair behind is gathered into short braids 
and tied at the neck. 

The married women wear their hair in two 
coils which hang down on the shoulders. The 
young girls dress their hair in whorls at the 
sides of the head. The whorls are made to 
imitate the squash blossom. When they marry, 
they change the arrangement to coils like their 
mothers'. They usually marry when quite 
young. 

The Hopi have considerable artistic taste, 
are hard workers and good farmers. They have 
become keen at making a bargain. They are 



14 INTRODUCTION 

a happy, hospitable people, fond of fun and 
practical jokes. They seldom forget a kindness. 
They believe in bogies, wizards, and witches, 
and they have great faith in good and bad 
signs. They rarely steal, and they condemn 
lying. Murder is unknown. The children are 
respectful and obedient, and never punished by 
their parents. The governing body of the Hopi 
is a council of clan elders and chiefs of religious 
societies. There is a village chief, a speaker 
chief, and a war chief; but there has never been 
a supreme chief of all the Hopi pueblos. There 
seems to be no punishment for any crime but 
witchcraft, to which almost any great crime can 
be charged by these people. No punishment 
of a witch or wizard is known to have been 
inflicted in Walpi in recent years, but stories 
are told of how, in earlier times, persons disap- 
peared mysteriously or were killed when accused 
of witchcraft. In Kwahu's day, this was very 
likely not uncommon. 

Beautiful folklore stories are told among the 



INTRODUCTION 15 

Hopi. These have come down from the olden 
times, by word of mouth from mother to daugh- 
ter, and from father to son. They believe in 
many beings with magic power superior to men. 
Their songs and prayers to these supernatural 
beings are very beautiful. They believe in a 
life after death in an underworld, but not in a 
future punishment. 

The Hopis show great skill in weaving and 
dyeing their baskets and their embroidered 
blankets, belts, and kilts. Their weaving is 
beautiful and of many kinds. The pottery is 
fair though not so fine nor so well painted as 
that made by their ancestors. They make very 
peculiar masks and other articles from hides, to 
be worn during their many religious dances and 
ceremonies. They carve and paint dolls, dress- 
ing them with cloth and bright feathers. They 
manufacture mechanical toys of considerable in- 
genuity for use in their dramatic entertain- 
ments. Some of these toys, imitations of birds 
and animals, are wonderfully lifelike. 



16 INTRODUCTION 

The Hopi knew nothing of horses, sheep, 
or iron implements before the advent of the 
Spaniards in 1540. 

In the year 1880, Mr. William Keam and his 
brother, Thomas V. Keam, opened a trading 
store and sold American goods to the Hopi, 
which led to great changes among them. 

Most of the Hopi now have doors and glass 
windows in their houses. They use wagons, 
stoves, matches, and lamps. They dress in fac- 
tory-made calico. They buy sugar, flour, and 
coffee from American traders. The money ob- 
tained for trinkets, pottery, baskets, and blan- 
kets, which they sell to tourists, supplies them 
with many other comforts. 

A large number of Hopi families have left 
the pueblos on the lofty mesas and have set- 
tled among the foothills. There are schools at 
Keam's Canyon and at each mesa. The chil- 
dren are taught to speak and read English, and 
the Hopi Indians are fast learning to live as do 
civilized Americans. 



Part I 
CHILDHOOD 




Prater Plumes 



KWAIIU 



CHAPTER I 



A BABY IS NAMED 

It was an hour before sunrise of a solemn and 
important day. In the Hopi Indian village of 
Walpi, situated high above the desert on top of a 
rocky mesa, or plateau, all the 
people were astir. The baby son 
of the great chief was to be 
named. The men, the women, 
some of them carrying babies on 
their backs, and the children, all 
were gathered where they could 
look down upon the big open 
space before them. This space 
was a great court in the middle of a group of stone 
buildings, many stories high, in which all the people 
of the village lived. There, in the center of a wide 
circle of friends and neighbors, the sacred birth 
fire was burning brightly. Its flickering flames cast 

19 




20 KWAHU 

strange spots of light upon the bronze faces and 
naked bodies of the assembled Indians. 

In the home of Kokop, the chief, his mother was 
busily preparing the baby for the naming ceremony. 
All through the previous night Yuna, the baby's 
mother, had sat sleepless beside its crude cradle, 
guarding it; but now the godmother took full 
charge. At the first sign of light in the east she took 
a bowl filled with finely ground 
cornmeal, and with the cornmeal 
drew four parallel lines on each 
wall of the house, first on the 
north wall, then on the west, the south, and the 
east walls, and finally on the ceiling and the floor. 
This was "building a house" for the baby. Next, 
she placed a feather from the breast of an eagle 
upon the lines she had made on the floor, and on 
this feather she placed a bowl filled 
with a suds made of yucca roots. 
The baby's mother knelt beside 
the bowl with her long, straight, 
black hair falling into the suds. The godmother 
took an ear of corn, dipped it in the suds, and 





A BABY IS NAMED 21 

touched the mother's head with the end of the ear. 
This she repeated four times. Then all the female 
relatives of the baby's father did the same thing, 
even to the smallest girl. While the other women 
stood in a circle around her, the godmother then 
washed the head of Yuna in the yucca suds and 
bathed her legs and arms with an ointment made by 
boiling juniper boughs. 

The mother remained kneeling while another 
earthen bowl was placed before her. Into this second 
bowl a number of hot 
stones were placed. The 
godmother first wrapped 
a blanket around Yuna, entirely 
enveloping her, after which she 
poured upon the hot stones a quantity of the juniper 
ointment. A dense steam was thus produced which 
entirely hid Yuna from the view of the silent, watch- 
ing relatives. The purification of the mother was 
completed. 

The head of the baby was next washed with the 
same ceremony as that used upon the mother. A 
prayer of thanks was repeated for the new life given 




22 KWAHU 

to them, and another prayer was offered for the future 
of the child. Then the entire little body, except the 
head, was rubbed with warm ashes mixed with water. 
Next, it was wrapped in a piece of coarse cotton 
cloth and strapped to a narrow board so that he 
would be sure to grow up straight and strong. 

The baby was now ready for the naming ceremony. 
All waited silently for a signal from Kokop, who was 
sitting on the top of a house opposite the doorway 
of his home and watching for the rising of the sun. 

At length the glow of the sun showed on the 
distant eastern horizon. A signal from Kokop 
announced its rising. 

Old Acmo, Keeper of the Sacred Well, and one of 
the wise men of the village, stepped from the circle 
of Indians, and, facing the east, said : 

"The eyes of a child are not strong. It is well 
that a fire should light the dim trail at the start. 
Four days has this sacred pile burned that there 
might be no dark places. Let now a name be 
given." 

As old Acmo ceased speaking, the mother walked 
slowly from her doorway, scattering sacred meal in 



A BABY IS NAMED 23 

a straight line to show the way the child should 
walk to please the gods. She went to where the 
fire burned and scattered its embers in all directions 
to drive away evil spirits. Then she reentered her 
house, and immediately the godmother stepped out, 
carrying the child upon its board. She held it low 
over the straight lines of sacred meal that she had 
scattered, its head directed forward. She placed 
the infant where the fire had been, made a circle 
around him with sacred meal to protect him, held 
what was left of her handful of meal to the infant 
mouth, and then threw the meal in the direction of 
the rising sun. Yuna, who had followed the god- 
mother, also bearing a handful of meal, said a 
short prayer over her meal and cast it also in the 
direction of the sun. Then both women stepped 
aside. 

Next came a strange and hideous procession of 
Indians, wearing the heads and skins of the creatures 
of the mountains and of the desert that the boy 
would hunt when he grew up. Suddenly, as they 
circled around the child, they started a terrible 
din, imitating the growls and calls of animals and 







"A Signal from Kokop announced its Rising" 
24 




A BABY IS NAMED 25 

birds, while the others added to the uproar by 
shaking huge rattles made of gourds containing 
quartz crystals. 

The medicine man then 
stepped to the center of the 
circle, and the noise ceased. 
He lighted a great pipe and 
blew whiffs of smoke to the north, the west, the 
south, the east, straight up in the air, and then 
towards the earth. This he did to make sure of 
the good will of the Spirits of the Sky and Those 
Above that made the thunder, the 
lightning, the clouds, and the rain, 
and controlled the sun, the moon, 
and the stars. 
Through all the deafening noise, the infant lay 
blinking in the sun, his little red face screwed up 
in queer wrinkles and his fists doubled up tightly. 
He did not cry and was not at all disturbed by the 
strange proceedings. His large, round, black eyes 
seemed to stare at something in the sky. The In- 
dians looked up, and there, directly above where 
the child lay, a giant eagle was slowly circling. 




26 KWAHU 

"It is a good omen," said old Acmo. "The eagle 
is a mighty bird. See, it comes to greet its brother ! 
The boy will be great chief !" 

The boy was named Kwahu, which means 
Eagle. 

Later in the day all his relations gathered at the 
home of the chief to partake of a feast. Each matron 
and maiden among the relations made a present of 
a small blanket to the baby. 

Five months later, Kwahu was unstrapped from 
his board. He learned to walk before a year had 
passed, while other children of his age were still 
crawling. 

One day, when he was just past three, he toddled 
into the room where a council was being held. In 
his right hand he tightly clutched a small, live 
snake. 

"See!" said old Acmo. "I have said Kwahu 
will be great chief. Look ! He is not afraid !" 

Kwahu grew rapidly in size and strength. When 
he had reached his fifth year he could outrun all 
the other boys of his age, and he had learned to 
shoot straight with a bow and arrow. 



A BABY IS NAMED 27 

The men frequently talked about him when he 
was out of hearing. They marveled at his wise 
little sayings ; they remembered the prophecy of 
old Acmo, and predicted that Kwahu when he 
grew to manhood would be a great, wise, and good 
chief. 






CHAPTER II 



IN MISCHIEF 






Old Acmo and Kokop sat in the shade 
smoking. The women were at work in the 
central open spaces of the village. Several 
boards, to each of which a baby was strapped, had 
been placed in a group against the side of a house, 
out of the way but not out of sight of the mothers. 
Many little children were playing on the ground near 
the two men ; and at one side, Kwahu and several 
other boys of about seven years were lazily watching 
a number of girls who were crushing minerals and 
grinding and pounding lumps of different colored 
clay or bowls of berries. From these materials their 
mothers would later make the paints used in decorat- 
es 




A Chorus of Cries from the Babies filled the Aik 



29 



30 KWAHU 

ing bowls, jars, and bottles, and in dyeing the cot- 
ton cloth which the men had woven. 

"The boy Kwahu grows rapidly, straight in mind 
and straight in body," said old Acmo, "and the 
thoughts that he speaks are good." 

"I want him to grow up," said Kokop, thought- 
fully, "so that when I no longer walk the earth and 
am numbered among the Lost Others, he may take 
my place as chief and lead his people with bravery, 
kindness, and wisdom. He must learn to be unself- 
ish, so that he will be welcome at the camp fires of 
the friendly." 

"He has much mischief in his ways," said Acmo, 
"but he does no harm." 

Just then a chorus of cries from the babies filled 
the air. The two men looked towards them and 
saw Kwahu daubing their faces with paint. At 
the same instant, several of the women started to 
the rescue of their infants ; but they were not quick 
enough to catch Kwahu, who, after daubing the last 
baby, darted away to safety. 

Later in the day, when Kwahu returned to the 
house, he round it filled with women. They were 






IN MISCHIEF 31 

the friends of his mother, Yuna, and were helping 
her to get ready for some traders who were expected 
from another tribe. A runner, coming in advance, 
had announced that they would arrive before many 
suns had set. The coming of traders from an out- 
side tribe was a rare event, and all the people in the 
village were accordingly much excited. 

Yuna was busy weaving a basket of split yucca 
leaves. These baskets were so closely woven that 
they would hold water, and the leaf strips did not 
have to be dyed, but were left the yellowish brown 
natural color. 

The runner sat eating his meal . Kwahu seated him- 
self close beside him and asked him many questions. 

"Do you come from far away?" he asked. 

The runner was a boy about twice the age of 
Kwahu, strong, clear-eyed, and good-natured. He 
had been born in Hopiland ; but when he was still 
a child, his parents had been killed in a Ute raid, and 
the Utes had stolen him. Later, he made his escape 
from the Utes and had wandered a long distance 
into an unknown country, where he had been found 
by some strange Indians and adopted into their 




32 KWAHU 

tribe. He had learned their language while not for- 
getting his own — a rare thing among Indians, for they 
are seldom able to understand 
the language of another tribe, 
Wk their accomplishments in this 
jjB direction being limited to a 
Wf few trade words of some tribe 
W to which they are distantly 
related or with which they 
came in constant contact. 

It was the first time that this boy had served as 
a courier for his tribe. He was to remain in Walpi 
till the arrival of the traders and act as their inter- 
preter. He was very proud of having been chosen 
for this service, and was quite 
willing to talk about his journey. 
"I have come many days' 
journey," he said to Kwahu, 
"from the land of the setting- 
sun, where the rivers are deep 
and broad, and where the great 
sea strclchi's farther than the eye can reach. I have 
come across mighty mountains where the snow man- 




IN MISCHIEF 33 

tie rests on the peaks even after the corn is green in 
the valleys below. And I have come through great 
forests where the trees are so high that it strains 
the eye to behold the topmost leaves." 

Kwahu's mind was filled with wonder. 

"Why do your people come so far to trade?" he 
asked. 

" It is because the people in Hopiland make many 
things which we have not and cannot make," ans- 
wered the runner. "It is wise then that our traders 
come hither, for we also have some articles that 
you have not." 

Kwahu thought more of the honor of being se- 
lected as a runner than of the trading „ ^^ 
that the young courier announced. 

"I shall some day be a runner," he 
said to the boy from the other tribe. 

"You are the son of a chief," the 
runner answered ; "and when your 
years are more, you will no doubt be a runner. 
When that time comes I shall have my own tipi ; 
and I wish now that if you journey into my coun- 
try, you will come to my tipi and smoke with me." 

KWAHU 3 




34 



KWAHU 



For several days the men, women, and girls of 
the village were very busy making things for the 
day of trading. Kwahu learned a great deal about 
the things that were made in his tribe and the way 
in which they were made. He watched the girls 
knead the soft clay which the women afterwards 
molded by hand into different-shaped bowls, jars, 

and other vessels. After 
the vessels were molded, he 
saw the women rub off the 
rough places with smoothing 
stones and then carry them 
to the sunny places where 
they were left until they be- 
came thoroughly dry and hard. He noticed that 
some of the bowls and jars thus made were used in 
the household for cooking or storage, and these had 
smooth edges. Other vessels were used in the vari- 
ous religious ceremonies of the tribe, and these had 
edges that were terraced to represent the clouds. 

He watched his mother as she was making paint 
from the minerals and colored clay which the girls 
had ground ; and he learned that on the vessels to 




IN MISCHIEF 



35 



be used for food beautiful devices in black, red, and 
orange were being painted, while on the vessels to 
be used in religious ceremonies strange figures were 
drawn of gods and stars, and mys- 
tic symbols that he could not un- 
derstand. 

In the evening, when the other 
women had gone home, Kwahu 
sat by his mother and saw her 
spin the cotton which was grown 
in small quantities in the field near 
where the corn was planted. She 
made a long, thin stick revolve by rubbing it on her 
thigh while she held the raw cotton in the 
other hand, and he marveled as the mass of 
white fibers was turned into long threads 
and wound around the revolving stick. It 
seemed like magic to him, and later he saw 
his father weave these threads or yarn into 
blankets and pieces of cloth. The weav- 
ing was done with bone needles on a loom 
made of cedar boughs, stripped of bark. Some of 
the cotton yarn used was white, some was dyed 




36 



KWAHU 



brown, some was red, and some was yellow. A 
separate needle was used for each color, and as 
the weaving progressed, strange designs appeared 
in the blankets. 

Kwahu was so tired on the night before the traders 
were to arrive that he fell asleep before the Spirits 
of the Sky had put the moon and the stars in the 
heavens to watch for the return of the sun. 








CHAPTER III 

THE TRADERS 

Kwahu was awakened in the morning by hearing 
the song of the maidens as they ground corn 
into meal. He hastened to the doorway, rubbing 
his eyes, and listening to the last high notes that told 
of the triumph of the rising sun over the mist and 
the darkness. 

The song had scarcely ended when Kwahu heard 
a shrill call like that of a hawk ; it was repeated 
three times, and then, after a short pause, twice 
again. It was the signal by which the long-expected 
traders announced their approach to the village. 
He hurried with Tabo, who was his closest friend, 
to the side of the mesa, where the strangers were 
climbing slowly up the steep trail. 

The first to reach the top was Ho-na-ni, a chief, 
who was followed by his wife, carrying on her shoul- 
ders a large package wrapped in deerskins. Behind 

37 



38 KWAHU 

these came many others, the men followed by women 
carrying in various ways the things that they had 
brought to trade. 

Kokop and old Acmo, the medicine man, together 
with other Hopi warriors, met them. They led 
the visiting Indians to one of the large kivas, 
or underground rooms. There, while all sat in a 
wide circle, they smoked a peace pipe together. 
Kokop gave Ho-na-ni the seat of honor. The visit- 
ing chief filled the peace pipe, puffed on it twice, and 
handed it to the Indian who sat nearest on his right. 
Thus is was passed from mouth to mouth until all 
those around the circle had smoked. Then it was 
returned from the Indian on the extreme end of 
the circle to the man on his left, and so on back 
around the circle. When finally it reached the 
visiting chief, he cleaned it, refilled and relighted it, 
and started it again upon its rounds. It was never 
passed in front of the guest of honor. 

While the men were smoking and exchanging news, 
the women were getting ready for the trading which 
was to begin later in the day, after a feast had been 
cooked for the visitors. 



THE TRADERS 



39 




The visiting women carried their bundles into the 
open square, in the shade of the walls of the pueblo, 
and opened them. The Hopi 
women carried their wares to 
the same place. The Hopi 
tribe had turquoise, or "blue 
stones, " as the Indians called 
them, blankets, woven cotton 
cloth, eagle feath- 
ers, mats and baskets of woven yucca 
fiber and of reed, many kinds of painted 
bowls, jars, bottles, and delicate vases, 
and beautifully tanned deerskins. 

These they exchanged with the visitors 

for bracelets, armlets, necklaces, and 
finger rings, made of sea shells, and 
bright colored pebbles, for seeds of corn, 
for tortoise shell ornaments, and for combs made 
from the backbones of fishes. 

After a feast, the trading began and continued 
until after the sun had disappeared in the west. 

In the twilight, the boys sat on the edge of the 
stone terrace that formed the roof of Kwahu's home 






'in; Women ui.u qi fting read's; fob the Trading" 

in 



THE TRADERS 41 

and at the same time the front yard of Tabo's 
home on the tier or story above. Below them they 
could see some of the men from the party of 
traders engaged in games with the young men 
of Walpi. Some were shooting arrows through 
a hoop as it was rolled across the open square. 
Others were running foot races, tossing hoops over a 
stick driven in the ground, or wrestling. 

Presently, a group of women came across the 
mesa, carrying heavy earthen jars of water poised 
upon their shoulders. Several of the women, in- 
cluding Tabo's mother, also were carrying their 
babies, slung on boards ; for the Indian 
women take their babies with them 
wherever they go. The babies are 
strapped to boards until they are five 
or six months old. Then they are 
carried in blankets, which the mothers sling over 
their backs. 

On the back of the mother of Tabo, her baby, 
Buli the Butterfly, cried fretfully. 

"You must sleep," she said to the baby, "or I shall 
be sad. Naughty little babies that stay awake have 




42 KWAHU 

to be told of the bad owl with the crossed eyes and 
yellow glare that will eat them up ; but you are a 
good little baby, Buli, and I will sing you the sleep 
song." 

She carried Buli into the house, and soon the boys 
heard her voice, drowsy, sweet, caressing, and monot- 
onous, singing the lullaby : 

Pu-va, pu-va, pu-va, 
Pu-va, pu-va, pu-va, 

Ho-ho-ya-tu, 
Shuh-po pa-ve-e, 

Na-i-kwi-o Kiang-o, 
Pu-va, pu-va, pu-va, 

Pu-va, pu-va, pu-va. 1 

1 Sleep, sleep, sleep, 
Sleep, sleep, sleep, 

The beel Le in i be desert carries its babe on its back ; 

In t he trail i lie beetles 
On each ol ber's backs are sleeping ; 
So, sleep on, my baby, thou — 

Sleep, sleep, sleep. 
Sleep, sleep, sleep. 

I Note. The Hopi Indian mother frequently sings this Lullaby 
to her baby as, with the baby strapped mi her hack, she works 
at the [netate, or grinding stone, and the motion of the mother 



THE TRADERS 

Puwuch Tawi 



43 



Not too fast 

3 _3 






i 



*=fc 



-P=*=J 



Pu 



pu - va 



pu - va 




pu - va 



pu - va 



h-M — L # 



In 



the 



trail the 



bee 



ties 



-ttj 


s— 




-F=H= 


-h^ri-M- 


i — i — 


^^=$- 


— ^ — 
—0 — 


=^ 


_J=3_g= 


-. -j-t^-t 


* 



on each oth - er's backs are 

IE s, n, i% _i 



sleep 



ing. 



5 



#t 



So on mine, my ba - by, thou. 




Pu - va . . . . pu - va pu - va. 

as she grinds the corn, rocks the baby. The words and t he music 
are copyrighted, and are from " The Indian's Book," by kind per- 
mission of Natalie Curtis, the author, and Harper & Brothers.) 



44 KWAHU 

When the young runner started on his journey 
home, Kwahu went with him some distance beyond 
the village. As they parted, Kwahu gave the runner 
two long eagle feathers, which were his greatest 
treasures. The runner took the feathers, thanked 
the Hopi boy, and then stripped bark from a cedar 
tree and wrapped the feathers in it to protect them. 

He then unfastened from his right arm a curious 
bracelet made of small sea shells and bright-colored 
pebbles, and handed it to Kwahu. 

"Take this, little brother," he said, "and wear it. 
If you are ever in trouble and meet some of my tribe, 
they will know by this bracelet that we are brothers, 
and they will help you. My name is Nucaki. I 
will think often of you." 

Kwahu was much pleased and spoke his thanks. 
He walked slowly home, planning great things that 
he would do when he grew older. He knew that, 
because he was the son of a chief, more would be 
expected of him than of the other boys ; and he spent 
much lime, sitting quietly in lonely places, thinking 
of how great his father, Kokop, was in the tribe, and 
planning how he would some day be equally as great. 




CHAPTER IV 

PLAYING WAR 

Kwahu and Tabo, his friend, lay prone upon 
the ground in a hollow place between two big 
bowlders. They were at one end of the high mesa, 
or plateau, on which the village stood. By crawl- 
ing a few feet to their right they could have looked 
over the edge of the rocks to the desert many 
hundred feet below. If they had looked at the 
narrow open space between the edge of the desert 
sands and the base of the mesa, they could have 
seen the men hoeing corn. The men used small, 
sharp slabs of stone fastened to sticks with thongs 
made of the skins of wild animals. 

But they did not care to look down towards the 
desert and the cornfields, for they were playing war 
and were scouts on the lookout for the enemy. 
Beside each little Indian boy lay his war shield, 
like his father's, but smaller. It was made of deer- 

45 



46 KWAHU 

skin stretched tightly over small sticks. Each 
shield was ornamented with zigzag streaks of red 
and yellow paint to represent lightning, and daubs 
of brown paint for bears' tracks, to show that the 
scouts moved quickly and could follow the trail of 
the enemy. Over a shoulder of each of the boys 
there was a wolfskin, to impart to him the swiftness 
and sagacity of that animal. 

As Kwahu and Tabo waited, they saw three other 
boys, also about nine years of age, peer cautiously 
out from behind other bowlders and then run across 
the open space towards a clump of bushes. The 
three boys were the Ute enemy in this game of war. 
Kwahu and Tabo noiselessly left their hiding place, 
and, still flat on their stomachs, crawled very cau- 
tiously from one rock to another towards the spot 
where they knew the enemy was hidden. Some- 
times they crawled only a few feet at a time and 
then lay perfectly still, but just as they were ready 
to pounce upon the other three boys and capture 
them, Tabo stepped carelessly on a twig and it 
snapped. The enemy heard the cracking twig, and 
thus knowing that Kwahu and Tabo had discovered 



PLAYING WAR 47 

them and were close to them, jumped up and ran. 
Kwahu and Tabo ran after them. When near the 
goal one Indian boy tripped and fell. He jumped 
up, accused Kwahu of making him fall, and struck 
him on the cheek. 

The two boys were fighting in real earnest when 
suddenly A-wa-ta, the medicine man, appeared. 

"Fight not among yourselves," said the medicine 
man, who was also priest to the men and teacher to 
the children of the village, as he separated the boys. 
"Save your strength for battle with our enemies, 
the Utes." 

"Will the Utes come soon?" asked Kwahu. 

"No one knows," said the medicine man, shaking 
his head. "When they come, there is fighting, 
blood, death ! We are a peaceful people, and would 
live our lives as we plan and as the gods direct. 
Come, boys, with me. We will plant prayer plumes 
before the god of war, and I will tell you how the 
Utes once came and went, while Kokop, our chief, 
was yet a boy." 

The medicine man led the boys to the house of 
the god of war, in one of the kivas, or underground 



48 KWAHU 

rooms, of the great aggregation of stone houses, 
three stories high, in which all the Indians of the 
ancient Hopi village of Walpi lived. 

The Ute Indians to the north of Walpi lived in 
tents, or tipis, made of buffalo or elk skins stretched 
over poles stuck in the ground. They never re- 
mained in one spot very long, but moved from place 
to place for their hunting, taking their tents with 
them and making new homes wherever they camped. 
The Hopi Indians, however, were home builders 
and lived in one place a very long time. The village, 
or "pueblo," of Walpi was built so many years be- 
fore Kwahu was born that even old Acmo did not 
remember how old it was. It was two hundred 
paces long, half as wide, and looked like a great, 
wide terrace, or flight of giant steps, because each 
story was set back from the one below it so that the 
roof of one story formed the yard of the story next 
above it. Rough stone steps or clumsy notched logs 
led from one story to another. The only entrance 
to the rooms on the ground floor was through an 
opening in the roof. 

The medicine man led the boys up the ladder to 




PLAYING WAR 40 

the roof and down through one of these openings 
into the house of the god of war. 

The room was large and dark, lighted only by 
the flicker of pieces of raw cotton burning in one 
corner in an earthen jar of bear's fat. As the boys' 
eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness, they 
| saw that the walls of the room were deco- 
rated with paintings of animals. On the 
north wall was pictured a mountain lion, 
on the south a wildcat, on the east a wolf, 
and on the west a bear. A great five-pointed 
star was painted between the rafters *m 
of the ceiling. 

The men and the boys picked up 
a number of prayer plumes from 
where they were stored in the corner of the 
room, in a sort of box made by hollowing 
out the trunk of a small tree. They planted 
them in the earthen floor in front of the 
altar of the god of war. The prayer plumes 
were sticks of wood sharpened at one end 
and decorated with the feathers of different birds. 
When the prayer plumes had been placed, the 



50 KWAHU 

boys sat on the ground in a semicircle around the 
medicine man, and he began his story. 

"One season of the hot suns when Kokop was no 
more than a head taller than you are now, Kwahu, 
our people were in great distress. No water had 
fallen from the skies in many moons ; the seeds of 
corn which we had planted in the bosom of Mother 
Earth grew only into short sprouts that withered 
in the heat of the burning sun ; the mountain streams 
sank back into the ground ; we had only a small 
jar of water to each family for drinking, and we were 
starving. It was then that the Utes came. 

"Our women and some of our men were in the 
cornfield, at the foot of the mesa, vainly trying to 
save the dying crop. Other men had gone to the 
blue mountains across the plains in search of water ; 
and the children were in the village, all except 
Kokop, who had gone into the field with his 
mother. 

" With his bow and arrow Kokop climbed a tall 
tree, playing scout as you were playing a little 
while ago. Soon he grew tired and started down. 
One Last look he took, and what he saw made his 



PLAYING WAR 51 

blood feel cold as the water of the mountain spring 
in the season of the snows. Crouched behind a 
bowlder in the desert, hidden from our people on 
the ground, Kokop, from his lofty perch, saw two 
Ute scouts. How they had gotten there, he knew 
not ; how many warriors were behind them, he knew 
not; he only knew that the dreaded enemy was 
making ready to spring. 

" His heart beat loudly, many times, as he 
thought of what was best for him to do. Then he 
shot an arrow. It landed, upright, in the sand near 
the Ute scouts. Kokop was happy. He knew 
the scouts would go with great speed to tell their 
chief that the Hopis were watchful as the hawk. 

"He clambered to the ground and ran quickly to 
our people in the field, calling as he went : 

" ' Yuta win-wu ! Yuta win-wu ! ' 

"The men seized their bows and arrows, mothers 
slung their babies upon their backs, and all gathered 
excitedly around Kokop. 

"'The Utes have come,' said Kokop. 'From 
the top of the tree yonder, I saw two scouts, but my 
arrow missed them.' 



52 KWAHU 

"Our people hurried to the steps in the rock that 
lead up through the deep ravine to our village. 
When only the women had started up, the wild 
cries of the Utes rent the air ; a rain of arrows hit 
the ground, and the warriors from the north rushed 
towards our people. The Utes were many and we 
were few. They were to us like the leaves of the 
forest to the leaves of a single tree, but our men 
fought well and sent many prayers to our god of 
war. 

"The god of war was pleased with their prayers 
and answered them in his own way." 

The medicine man paused, and the boys looked 
at him, wondering. 

"What he speaks is truth," said old Acmo, com- 
ing suddenly into the room. 

"The face of the sky," continued the medicine 
man, "became gray with anger, then changed to 
a yellowish brown, then to purple and black ; and 
mighty clouds of sand, like the body of a monster 
wasp, swept across the desert. The artgry breath 
of the sky blew the sands of the desert so fiercely 
into the faces of the enemy that the Utes dropped 



PLAYING WAR 53 

flat upon the ground and buried their heads in their 
hands. Our people were safe from the sand, in the 
bottom of the ravine behind the tall rocks. 

"While the Utes lay like broken reeds in the sand, 
our people climbed to the top of the mesa. When the 
sandstorm passed and the Utes again advanced to 
attack us, our warriors killed many with arrows 
and with great rocks rolled down from the mesa 
top. At last, beaten and overcome, the Utes turned 
and fled into the desert." 

The medicine man stopped and old Acmo took 
up the tale. 

"The driving away of the enemy was a good omen 
for our people, for the water fell from the skies on 
the corn and made it grow ; the sacred well gushed 
with life, and we were happy. Kokop's eye, al- 
ways open, saved his people. So must you learn 
that the eye that is open sees the enemy, and the 
hand that is ready and strong will kill him." 



CHAPTER V 




KWAHU MADE LEADER 

"Who dares follow me now?" 
Kwahu stood poised on the edge of 
a deep crevice in the rocks. His lithe, 
bronze body, clothed in nothing but 
deerskin moccasins and a band of 
bright yellow cloth around his loins, 
was as straight as a pine tree. His hair was long, 
black, waving, and gathered at the back of his 
head in a small knot. His shoulders were square 
and strong. 

His playmates held back. The crevice was sev- 
eral feet wide and so deep that when a stone was 
dropped into it, the sound of its fall on the rocks 
below was not heard for many seconds. 

"You all go hand in hand with fear," said Kwahu, 
tauntingly. "Each should have a woman to carry 
him on her back !" 

As the boys, who were all about eleven years of 
54 



KWAHU MADE LEADER 55 

age, grumbled among themselves at his words, 
Kwahu stepped back a few paces, ran to the edge 
of the crevice at top speed, and leaped. His body 
shot out under the force his sturdy legs had given 
it, and for a few seconds seemed to hang in mid-air. 
Then he landed on the other side of the crevice as 
gracefully as a young antelope, turned, waved his 
hand, and cried : 

"Who comes the way I came?" 

Several of the boys prepared to make the leap, 
but as each made his run, his courage failed before 
he reached the edge of the crevice, and he stopped 
short. Slowly and silently they crawled across on 
the trunk of a fallen tree and gathered around 
Kwahu. He was now their leader, and they asked 
him what he would do next. 

"I know," he said, "where there is the nest 
of an eagle. Three times I have seen it circle to 
the place. We will go there. I will show the 
way." 

He led them in single file up steep places, over 
great bowlders, and across deep gullies to the end of 
the mesa farthest from where the village stood, and 




is iiiidv . . . SEEMED TO HANG IX Mil) A1H 



56 



KWAHU MADE LEADER 57 

pointed to the eagle's nest high above them near 
the top of the cliff. 

"I see it," cried Tabo. 

"There are young eagles in it," said another. 

As the boys stood around the tree, debating how 
they could reach the nest, the young eagles began 
to screech. 

"They are hungry," said Kwahu, " and they know 
that the mother eagle comes soon with food. Acmo 
taught me that." 

"We must hurry, then," said one. "Who will 
climb to the nest?" 

"I will," said Kwahu. "I am the leader." 

"But," said Tabo, who was cautious and feared 
for Kwahu's safety, "the mother eagle might re- 
turn and harm you, Kwahu." 

It was a serious question, and the boys sat down 
and discussed it as solemnly as their fathers, in a 
council of war, discussed a possible attack by their 
enemy the Utes. 

"The eagle," said Tabo, "is a mighty bird, wild 
as the mountain lion and cunning as the fox, with 
eyes that see farther than the hawk's. It would 



58 KWAHU 

fight hard to protect its young. We must wait 
until the mother eagle comes and flies away again, 
and then we may catch the little eagles." 

Again the eaglets screeched, louder and longer. 
The boys listened, silently. With their eyes they 
measured the distance to the eagle's nest, and they 
saw the heads of four young eagles peeping over 
its edge. 

Suddenly Kwahu startled them by saying : 

"We will kill the mother eagle !" 

In an instant they were all excited, but their 
stolid little faces did not show it. Like their fa- 
thers, they had learned to hide their feelings. Not 
a boy moved from where he sat, but all turned their 
eyes to Kwahu. 

"It is big talk," said one who was jealous of 
Kwahu's leadership. "Men, not boys, kill eagles." 

"Who leaped the deep crack in the rocks when 
no one of us dared follow ? " asked Tabo, quick to de- 
fend his friend Kwahu. "Who can throw the dust 
of his moccasins in our faces as we run races, and 
who can kill a rabbit with an arrow ? It is Kwahu." 

"It is big talk," repeated the jealous one, sullenly. 



KWAHU MADE LEADER 59 

"Can he draw a bow that will drive an arrow to 
kill so far away as the eagle's nest?" 

Kwahu had said nothing. He stood a little way 
apart from the other boys, carefully examining his 
arrows and testing his bow. Now he stepped quietly 
forward and said : 

"I will try to shoot the eagle. The top of the 
cliff is above the nest and near to it. I will go there, 
alone." 

From his seat upon a rock, Tabo rose and went to 
Kwahu. 

"The eagle fights hard," he said. "Let me go 
with you, Kwahu. Two arrows will kill where one 
will fail." 

Kwahu hesitated. Tabo was like a brother to 
him. He knew that if the mother eagle saw him near 
her nest, she would attack him and he might need 
help ; but it had been said that he made big talk, 
and he could not show weakness before his play- 
mates and remain their leader. Finally he said, 
"I will go alone!" 

He gathered long tufts of grass, and, with strips 
of fiber from the inside bark of trees, fastened them 



60 KWAHU 

to the narrow band of deerskin thong that he wore 
around his head. He had seen his father, do this 
when he went scouting, so that when he stuck his 
head above the edge of a hill, the enemy could see 
only the tufts of grass fastened to the headband. 

When Kwahu had arranged the tufts of grass on 
his head, he strapped his bow and arrows to his back, 
so that his hands were free. The other boys watched 
him stolidly as he climbed, like a squirrel, from one 
ledge of rock to another, higher and higher, with 
many slips and narrow escapes, until he reached the 
top. 

There he found some low, scrubby bushes growing 
in a narrow crevice at the edge. By crawling in 
among these bushes he was able to hide his body, 
and the tufts of grass fastened on his headband 
made him seem like a part of the bushes. From 
where he lay, flat upon the rocks, he could see the 
eagle's nest only a little way from him. 

He lay there a long time, as still as the bush 
that concealed him. His legs grew stiff, his back 
ached, and his eyes pained from watching ; but he 
waited. 



KWAHU MADE LEADER 



61 




Then a shadow told him that the mother eagle 
was flying above him. At the same instant the 
eaglets screeched louder than ever, 
only to stop suddenly as the mother 
eagle alighted beside the nest. She 
dropped into the nest the food she 
had brought in her talons. 

The eagle did not see Kwahu, and he was glad. 
He watched her as she perched beside the nest, rest- 
ing. Carefully he fitted an arrow to his bow and 
waited for her to open her great wings to fly. He 
knew that his arrow could not pierce the folded 
wings and that he would have to shoot her in the 
breast to kill or even to wound her seriously. 

The eaglets devoured the food 
and screeched for more. The mother 
eagle scolded them for a while and 
then opened her wings to fly away in 
search of more. It was then that 
Kwahu sent his arrow, straight and 
true, into the eagle's breast and at once concealed 
himself again in his hiding place. The eagle flut- 
tered back to the nest. Her large, beadlike eyes 




62 KWAHU 

seemed to search for the enemy, and Kwahu's hand 
trembled a little as he fitted another arrow to his 
bow. It seemed a long time before the eagle fell, 
screaming, to the ground far below, her wings flap- 
ping angrily but weakly. 

Kwahu leaned far over the edge of the cliff and 
saw his playmates beating the dying eagle with 
sticks. He climbed down the way he had gone up. 

"She is dead," said Tabo, as Kwahu joined his 
playmates. 

"We killed her with sticks," said the jealous one. 

"She was dying when she fell at our feet," insisted 
Tabo. "It is Kwahu's eagle." 

The boys built a rough litter with small branches 
and sticks. On this they placed the body of the 
eagle, and, in twos, they took turns carrying it back 
to the village. It would have been easier to drag 
it over the ground, but they wanted to protect the 
feathers so that they could use them in making war 
bonnets. 








CHAPTER VI 

BULI THE BUTTERFLY AND KWEWE 

Kwahu and Tabo were one evening sitting in 
the house of Yuna, busy with feathers from the eagle 
that Kwahu had killed. They were making them 
ready to be worn by the men in the games and dances 
that were to be held to please the Spirits of the Sky 
so that rain would fall and make the corn grow. 

The room was square and fairly large. The walls 
were of stone, roughly plastered with adobe, and the 
floor was of slabs of sandstone. Across the ceiling 
stretched three heavy tree trunks that served as 
beams to help support the story above. It was 
lighted only by the narrow, open doorway and by 
two small, oblong openings in the front wall. 

Kwahu and Tabo watched Yuna as she placed 
a few handfuls of corn kernels on an oblong stone 
slightly hollowed in the middle ; ground the kernels 

G3 




64 KWAHU 

into meal with a heavy grinding stone; mixed the 
meal with water, and deftly spread the batter on a 
large, thin slab of stone kept 
hot in a great hooded fireplace 
at one end of the room. In a 
few minutes the piki, or bread, was cooked. It was 
as thin as paper, and greatly resembled the nest of a 
wasp. The boys ate it and liked it very much. 

" If the water does not fall from the skies and the 
corn does not grow, we shall have no more piki," 
said Tabo, addressing Kwahu, "and it will be like the 
time that the medicine man told us of, when your 
father was a boy and saved the people from the Utes." 

"The water will fall," said Kwahu. "Wait! 
The medicine men will fast and pray and scatter the 
sacred eornmeal to the winds, and the maidens will 
dance. Then, at night, you and I will slip out of 
our homes when nobody is looking, and we will watch 
the medicine men as they swing their slabs of wood 
around their heads on strings of yucca fiber or make 
lightning by striking stones together in the dark. 
Then the water will surely fall !" 

Yuna and the mother of Tabo were sitting at 







She crawled down backwards to the Bottom 



65 



66 



KWAHU 





the other side of the room, on mats of woven reeds, 
painting earthen jars, bottles, and bowls that were to 
be used in the games and dances. 

With slivers of yucca 

leaf they drew rude 

pictures of many of 

the gods of the Hopi. On some of 
the jars they made figures of serpents, sunflowers, 
wild beasts, frogs, the sun, and even of clouds with 
rain falling from them. 

Buli the Butterfly, sister of Tabo, was just old 
enough to walk, and she toddled, crowing and gur- 
gling, around the room. Kwahu, who was very fond 
of her, called her to him. The boys gave her rattles 
made of tiny gourds, a whistle made of 
a turkey bone, and a claw of the eagle to 
play with. 

Soon she tired of playing, dropped her 
toys, and toddled out through the door. 
No one saw her go. She found a hoop, 
made of a stout willow twig tied with 
rawhide, and tried to roll it. It zigzagged from 
her and rolled down the steep stone trail cut in the 







BULI THE BUTTERFLY AND KWEWE 67 

rock which led to the mesa terrace below. Buli 
watched the hoop until it stopped. Then she dropped 
down on her hands and knees, backed over to the 
top step, and crawled down backwards to the bottom. 
She found the hoop and toddled happily away to- 
wards the other end of the mesa, dragging it after her. 

She met nobody. The men were hunting, the 
women were busy in their houses, and only the half- 
wild village dogs were in sight, sleeping in the sun. 
Buli wandered on to the edge of the mesa. There 
she found a little brown puppy, crouching against 
a rock and whining. She squatted on the ground 
beside it and played with it. 

From behind a group of bowlders, with stealthy, 
noiseless steps, limped a lame wolf. He was very 
large, grizzled, shaggy, gaunt, and hungry. He 
stopped, alert, and sniffed the air. His bloodshot 
eyes, frightened but bold, were turned quickly in 
all directions, seeking signs of danger. The wolf, 
satisfied that he was alone, prepared to hunt. Then 
Buli's piping little voice caught his sharp ears as she 
prattled to the puppy. 

When the wolf disappeared, the puppy was alone. 



68 KWAHU 

A moment later a weird; long-drawn howl came 
from a near-by gully. It was the wolf calling to the 
others of his pack. 

Buli sat, crying, on the ground where the wolf 
had dropped her to call his mates. 

Before the last echoes of the shrill call had died, 
Kokop, and So-winn, father of Buli, came hurrying 
up the ravine that led to the top of the mesa, their 
bows ready in their hands. 

When they reached the top, the wolf had disap- 
peared ; Buli was watching a curious insect and had 
stopped crying ; the two men did not hear a sound. 

"It was the call of a wolf that we heard," said 
So-winn. 

"Yes," answered Kokop, as he examined the 
ground, "and here are the tracks of a large wolf 
that is lame." 

Other returning hunters joined the chief and So- 
winn, and all rapidly followed the tracks. 

One of the youngest braves was the first to see Buli. 
She was sitting where the wolf had dropped her, con- 
tentedly watching the antics of the jumping insect. 

"So-winn, uma; So-winn, uma!" he cried. 



BULI THE BUTTERFLY AND KWEWE G9 

Then he picked up Buli, and as So-winn rushed to 
him, he handed the baby to her father. 

The hunters gathered around So-winn as he care- 
fully examined Buli. Except for a few scratches, 
the child was not injured. The single piece of cloth- 
ing that she wore was torn, showing how the wolf 
had carried her. 

"We came only in time," said old Acmo. "The 
Gods of the Little Ones are good to you, So-winn. 
You must make offerings." 

Butterfly was very dear to the heart of So-winn, 
and he knew that she had been close to death. His 
arms were steady as he held her to his breast, but 
his heart quivered. His face, however, did not 
betray his feelings, and he said nothing. He walked 
away from the group of hunters and stood silently 
looking across the plain below. 

"See," he said suddenly, pointing to a lame wolf 
running in the distance, "there goes the evil one, 
Kwewe. May the trees of the forest fall upon 
him; may the streams dry up as he drinks; may 
his food turn to fire in his mouth; and may he 
never sleep !" 



70 KWAHU 

Then he placed the child upon the ground, raised 
his arms above his head, turned the palms of his 
open hands towards the east, and silently prayed. 
Next, he took a bit of the down of an eagle from his 
belt, poised it upon the tips of his fingers, and blew 
it from him, over the edge of the cliff. It wavered 
for a second and then rose gently in the air. 

"It is a good omen," he said solemnly. "The 
prayer pleases the gods ; it will be answered." 

As the hunting party walked on slowly towards 
the village, the men saw Kwahu and Tabo running 
towards them at top speed. 

"Buli the Butterfly is lost," cried Kwahu. 
"We cannot find her," shrieked Tabo. 
"She is not lost ; she is here," said So-winn, hold- 
ing the child on his shoulder. " The gods of the 
Little Ones saved her from the evil one, even from 
Kwewe the wolf." 

In the home of Yuna, the mother 
of Buli stood holding a bowl of clay 
"^"^^rJJ as Kokop and So-winn entered. 

"The Butterfly is safe. Another 
time it may not be so. Keep her with you — ever," 







BULI THE BUTTERFLY AND KWEWE 



71 



said So-winn to his wife as he handed the baby 
to her. 

The bowl she was holding fell to the floor and 
broke. She pressed Buli so tightly to her bosom 
that the baby cried. 






CHAPTER VII 



THE SACRED SIPAPU 

Buli was sitting on the floor of the kiva, intently 
watching Kwahu and Tabo. Her little head was 
turned to one side like that of a bird as it watches 
an insect crawling on the ground in front of it. 
She held one fat little foot in her chubby brown 
hands as she rocked her body slowly from side to 
side, but her bright black eyes never left the two 
boys, and she crowed contentedly. 

The Hopi boys glanced at her occasionally to 
make sure that she was safe, thinking always of 
how narrowly she had escaped death when Kwewe 
the wolf carried her off. Then they turned again to 
their work of planting a shoot of corn in the sipapu, 

72 



THE SACRED SIPAPU 73 

or small round hole, about a foot deep, in the center 
of the kiva. 

"It will grow," said Kwahu. "Here, where the 
fierce heat of the sun will not wither it, the corn 
will grow even higher than you stand, Tabo, and 
will wave a greeting to the wise men as they come to 
the council." 

As Kwahu, with Buli in his arms, climbed the 
rough ladder that led out of the kiva through the 
square opening in its roof, he met his father, Kokop. 

"Why do I find you coming out of the kiva? 
Do you not know that it is consecrated to the cere- 
monies of the priests and the councils of the chiefs 
and the wise men ? " asked the chief, with anger in 
his voice. "It is not a place for the idle playing of 
children." 

"We were not playing," answered Tabo, who 
had joined Kwahu, willing to share any blame or 
punishment that might be forthcoming for what 
they had done together. 

"What, then, were you doing?" asked Kokop. 

"We were preparing an omen for the wise men," 
answered Kwahu. 



74 KWAHU 

"Omens cannot be prepared," said Kokop, seri- 
ously ; "they happen at the will of the gods." 

"I will show you what we have done," answered 
Kwahu, as he started down the ladder into the kiva, 
followed by his father. 

They had hardly disappeared when a shoot of 
corn and a handful of earth were thrown up through 
the hatchway in the roof of the kiva. These landed 
at the feet of Tabo and of old Acmo, who had just 
come up the rough stone steps from the dwelling be- 
low and were about to enter the kiva. 

"What is this !" asked the old man. 

Before Tabo could answer, Kokop's head appeared 
at the top of the kiva ladder. His face was stern 
and in his eyes was the look of one who had seen that 
which startles. As he reached the top, he turned to 
look at Kwahu, who was following him. Then he 
looked at Tabo, and both boys quivered from head 
to foot. Next the chief looked at Acmo, and then 
he spoke, answering the silent question in the old 
man's eyes. 

"The Beloved Twain, the Sun-Father and the 
Earth-Mother, will be filled with great anger this 






THE SACRED SIPAPU * 75 

day," he said, as he scattered the handful of earth 
with his moccasined foot. "In the sacred sipapu 
I found a shoot of corn planted, blocking the com- 
ing of those who might rise from the underworld." 

Kwahu and Tabo, bewildered, looked at each 
other and at the men. Kokop spoke of strange 
gods, whose names were new to their ears, and they 
did not understand. They could not believe that 
their planting of the shoot of corn, as a surprise for 
the wise men of the council and the priests, could 
cause anger to any of their gods, either old or new. 
Kwahu, the leader always, spoke for both. 

"If it was wrong for us to plant the corn, my 
father," he said, " then it was wrong that we did not 
know it to be a wrong. We are sorry, and the pun- 
ishment that we must bear will be just." 

Kokop was about to speak again when old Acmo 
stopped him with a gesture and said : 

"The years of these boys are few, and they do 
not understand. The light of truth is in their eyes, 
and the words that flow from their lips are as in- 
nocent as the stream that gurgles from the moun- 
tain spring." 



76 KWAHU 

"It is well," said Kokop, thoughtfully, "that the 
hand be guided and governed by the mind. So 
there is still another task for you, Acmo. To these 
boys, the day that is now is like both the day that 
has passed and the day that is to come. As they 
live now, so do they believe that our people have 
always lived. It is well that they should know more. 
As their years pile one upon another, their minds 
should grow strong and well rounded, as do their 
bodies." 

Kokop walked away, and Acmo, taking the 
boys by the hands, led them to the end of the mesa 
on the south. In the shade of a huge bowlder he sat 
down and motioned to the boys to sit beside him. 
Acmo lighted his pipe and smoked silently for a 
long time. The boys waited, also silent. 

"I will tell to you," old Acmo said at last, "of the 
beginnings of our people and of the wonderful things 
that have happened to them, and other things that 
it is well for you to know." 

The old man's face was solemn, and, as he talked, 
wonder grew in the eyes of Kwahu and Tabo, and 
they moved closer together. 



THE SACRED SIPAPU 77 

"Awon-aw-il-ona, the First of the Gods and the 
All-Powerful, on one of his visits to the people of the 
world, who then lived in the center of the earth, 
found that they were very unhappy. There were 
good people and bad people, and the bad people were 
grown stronger than the good people. Indeed, the 
good people were being killed so rapidly that he 
feared there would soon be no good people left. The 
bad people were friendly with strange beings who 
worked in sorcery, and with the monsters and the 
demons. So Awon-aw-il-ona broke through the 
crust of the earth to find a place to which to lead the 
good people. 

" He found that all was deep darkness on the out- 
side of the earth, so that, although he could see all 
things, the good people that he was to save from 
the bad people inside of the earth were not able to 
follow where he led. He waved his hands, and in- 
stantly a great light was shed upon the surface of 
the earth from the skies above. It was the sun. 
Then Awon-aw-il-ona ordered that the sun should 
be the Sun-Father and the earth should be the 
Earth-Mother, and that all the gods of the people 



78 KWAHU 

who came from the center of the earth should be 
born of the Sun-Father and the Earth-Mother, or 
of their children. 

"The surface of the earth was soft like a marsh, 
and even the high places were damp like the floor of a 
deep cavern in the mountain side. The hole through 
which Awon-aw-il-ona came from the center of the 
earth was too small to allow more than one person 
at a time to follow him ; so he caused earthquakes 
to rend the surface of the earth. These made great 
holes which allowed the people to come from the 
center of the earth. But unhappily not only good 
people thus came, but also many beings of sorcery, 
bringing bad magic with them, besides demons and 
monsters. In the beginning, wretchedness and 
hunger abounded. Bad magic turned the people 
against one another and there was contention and 
war. 

"At one time, when the sun had gone to rest 
behind the black curtains of the night, the people 
held a great council and decided to flee from the 
beings of sorcery, the demons and the monsters, and 
to seek a place where the surface of the earth was 



THE SACRED SIPAPU 79 

firm like the rocks of this mesa on which our houses 
are built. Through many periods of darkness and 
light did they plan and watch and wait for the time 
to come when the evil beings should sleep a long 
sleep. In vain did they wait, for it seemed as if the 
evil ones never slept. Then, in a period of darkness, 
there came more earthquakes that made the earth 
tremble, while great, terrifying flashes of light ap- 
peared in the skies that muttered and rumbled. 
These noises were the voices of the gods directing 
the earthquakes and the swift wind which brought 
floods of water from the mysterious darkness and 
dashed them down upon the frightened people. 

" The beings of sorcery, the demons and the mon- 
sters, fled from the midst of the people and huddled 
together in a great cave. The people chose this 
time to escape, and started a search for the middle 
of the earth, where the surface would be hard and 
where they could live without sickness and war. 
The search that they began at that time has made 
our people wanderers on the face of the earth. 

"Just as the sun pushed aside the dark curtains 
of the night, and the first rays of light fell upon the 



80 KWAHU 

frightened faces of the fleeing people, another earth- 
quake, the greatest of all, shook the ground and 
opened great holes in it ; and then, as if a mighty 
hand had pressed down upon it, the cave in which 
the evil beings had hidden was crushed in and they 
were all killed, except a very few who stood close to 
the entrance and were forced out. These ran at top 
speed in the direction the people had fled, and they 
have pursued us ever since." 

Old Acmo paused, and took his pipe from the 
pipe bag that hung at his belt. As he packed the 
tube with his wrinkled forefinger, the boys watched 
him intently. Neither Kwahu nor Tabo spoke, 
but both wished that the old man would quickly 
finish smoking and resume the tale. 

Old Acmo, however, did not light his pipe. He 
sat holding it in the palm of his left hand, and, as 
his eyes wandered off across the valley to the blue 
mountains in the distance, the pipe was forgotten, 
the two waiting boys were forgotten, and the mind 
of the wise old man was filled with recollections of 
his youth and of the time when the tale he was 
telling was new to him. 



THE SACRED SIPAPU 81 

He closed his eyes, and the boys thought that he 
slept ; but the drooped eyelids of the old man served 
only as a screen upon which, with the vividness of 
actual scenes, visions of his long life were thrown. 
He saw himself a naked boy, strong, lithe, self- 
confident, and brave, leading the other boys of his 
tribe in mimic warfare ; he saw the mountain lion 
springing upon him, as it did when he first went with 
a hunting party ; he saw the black-eyed daughter of 
the chief smile upon him as he passed her doorway. 
Next he saw himself one of a party of warriors on the 
warpath, and as the vision of his first fight passed 
before him, the thin blood in his veins was electrified 
and a thrill of the excitement of youth passed through 
him, — then to go out forever, as the lightning 
changes of his waking dream showed him the sor- 
rows of droughts and famine. Then, as his head 
drooped on his chest, he saw a vision of death riding 
towards him on a black cloud and beckoning to him. 

He opened his eyes with a start. The blue moun- 
tains, across the valley, looked more blue, the sun 
appeared brighter, and the soft wind from the south 
seemed to caress him and bid him stay on earth. 

KWAHU 6 



82 



KWAHU 




He placed his pipe at his side, motioned to the 
boys to draw closer to him, and resumed the inter- 
rupted tale. 

"The beings of sorcery, the demons and the 
monsters that escaped, changed 
forms many times as they pur- 
sued our people. Some flew in 
the air, some ran on the 
ground, and some swam in 
the rivers; but always they 
have pursued and they still 
pursue our people. 

"Our people fled great distances, but they wan- 
dered aimlessly, because they had no leader, and they 
could not find the center of the world where the earth 
would be always firm. There was discord and dis- 
appointment, and their hearts beat slowly in despair. 
Then it was that Awon-aw-ol-ona willed that they 
should no longer be without help. Soon the Beloved 
Twain were born to them, the Sun- Father and the 
Earth- Moth or to guide, counsel, and comfort our 
people. Finally the Beloved Twain led them to a 
place where the earth was firm and hard, the water 



THE SACRED SIPAPU 83 

in the rivers clear, the sky always bright; and 
there the sun enveloped them in its rays and made 
them warm. There they lived until the children 
became old men, and then the earth opened once 
more and the rivers were swallowed ; the mountains 
crumbled, and our people were again forced to flee. 
"At their next tarrying place they lived even a 
longer time; and as they lived they learned much, 
even as you must learn. Up to that time, the 
bodies of the men, women, and children had tails 
like the tail of a dog, but shorter. At length, how- 
ever, all our people were good people, and all were 
free from the ills of those among whom they had 
lived in the center of the earth. Only one thing 
remained to trouble them, and that was the tails ; 
and they believed that if they could be rid of these, 
they would be in no further danger of being sent 
back to the awful darkness and terror at the center 
of the earth. They sought the Beloved Twain and 
asked them to intercede with Awon-aw-il-ona so 
that our people might be freed from their tails. 
Then, because they had learned much and lived 
uprightly, one morning, at the rising of the sun, our 



84 



KWAHU 



people all woke up and found that their tails had 
disappeared. Then they were happy. 

"Many tarrying places did they find in their 
wanderings. They met the peoples of older nations 
who had come up out of the center of the earth be- 
fore them, and from these older people they learned 
much wisdom. They learned also that, as they had 
come up, so would emerge still other nations or 
still others of our own people. For that reason 
there is in every kiva a sacred sipapu which must 
always be kept open as a way out of the center of the 
earth for those who may knock." 

Kwahu and Tabo waited as the old man paused 
again, but Acmo had finished his tale, and, rising 
slowly, he walked away; but the boys stayed in the 
shade of the bowlder for a long time, talking over the 
wonderful things they had heard. 







CHAPTER VIII 

AN ADVENTURE WITH KWEWE 

"Son," said Kokop, one day, as Kwahu sat watch- 
ing him cut a deerskin into moccasins with a sharp- 
ened piece of flint, "son, you are to go into the 
woods with the hunters to-day. There are many who 
fear, they know not what. If the fear is greater than 
the man, then the man shall not be called a man. 
Eleven summers have your cheeks been burned in 
the fierce sun, and as many times have you seen the 
snow mantle on the bosom of the Earth-Mother. 
The deer, the fox, and the wolf are cunning, and 
the bear is brave ; but the homes of the hunters are 
hung with their skins. Your arm is strong. The 
rest you must prove. Go, you are the son of a 
chief!" 

Kwahu took the bow his father gave him and the 

85 



86 KWAHU 

arrows tipped with flint. Down the narrow canyon 
from the village high up on a hill the hunting party 
went ; past the scattered open spaces where the corn 
was growing; over a stretch of desert shimmering 
in the sun ; across the plain and on to the woods 
beyond. It was a long journey. Kwahu walked 
proudly with the men, thinking of what old Acmo 
had taught him of the fox, the wolf, the mountain 
lion, and the antelope, and how to know the tracks 
of one animal from those of another. He heard the 
hunters talk of Kwewe the evil one, father of all 
wolves, that no hunter had been able to trap or kill, 
and he remembered that it was Kwewe that carried 
off Buli the Butterfly. 

He grasped his bow more firmly; felt in his belt 
the knife he had made from a stone and sharpened 
on the rough rocks; walked faster, and resolved 
that, if possible, he would be the one to kill Kwewe. 
His thoughts were of the wolf and he looked for 
tracks. Once he thought he had found them and 
his heart leaped. But they were the footprints of 
a fox, and old. 

A deer, startled, leaped from the edge of a pool 



AN ADVENTURE WITH KWEWE 87 

of water and ran. An arrow from a hunter's bow 
struck it and it fell, dead. 

Deep in the forest Kwahu heard a strange noise, 
and crouched in the thick underbrush to watch and 
wait. The rocks beside him were not more still 
than he. A long time he waited, but no animal 
came. When at last he stood up, he was alone. 
The hunters had gone on without him, but he was 
not afraid. He traced the footprints of his own 
moccasins back over the trail to where the deer had 
been killed. Its skin was stretched on the limb of a 
tree to dry, but no hunters were in sight. On the 
ground, however, he found the marks of their mocca- 
sins, and he followed their trail up the side of the 
mountain. 

As he trudged sturdily along, climbing over great 
bowlders and the trunks of fallen trees, or running 
quickly across the open spaces where the tracks of 
the hunters were easily followed, his thoughts were 
still of Kwewe the wolf. 

A twig snapped on his right, and then another. 
Kwahu knew that no Indian made a noise when he 
was hunting, but rather that some animal had 



88 KWAHU 

stepped on the twigs and broken them. He quickly 
fitted an arrow to the string of his bow and stood 
perfectly still, listening. The only sounds he heard 
were the gentle gurgling of a streamlet over smooth 
stones and the whispering of the leaves in the trees 
above him. His whole body trembled, his heart 
beat fast, and all his strong little muscles tightened as 
he leaned forward and strained his eyes in search of 
whatever might be hidden in the woods around him. 

Suddenly a giant wolf dashed from a clump of 
trees in front of Kwahu, not twenty paces from where 
he stood. Its hair was bristling; its eyes seemed 
to Kwahu, in the dimness of the forest, like balls of 
fire; its open, frothing mouth showed ugly, sharp, 
yellow fangs, and it snarled terribly. 

Kwahu did not run. He looked steadily at the 
ferocious animal and marveled that a wolf could be 
so big, while the wolf hesitated as if surprised that a 
boy as small as Kwahu would stand in its path. 
Then the beast stepped a pace closer and made 
ready to spring. 

All the instincts of the hunter born in Kwahu, all 
the teachings of old Acmo and the blood of chiefs, 




"He looked steadily at the Ferocious Animal 
89 



90 KWAHU 

helped him to be brave. He quickly stretched his 
bow as far as he could, and let fly. The flint-tipped 
arrow struck the wolf in the eye as it sprang. The 
same instant another arrow whizzed past Kwahu and 
struck the wolf, piercing its heart. The animal's 
body fell almost at the boy's feet. 

"My son, you have done well !" 

At the sound of his father's voice Kwahu looked up. 
Above him, on a ledge of rock, stood Kokop, sur- 
rounded by the hunters. 

"We have watched you from a distance," said 
Kokop, " as you traced our trail. Many bows and 
mighty arms were here to save you, had you needed 
help." 

The Indians gathered around the body of the 
giant wolf and examined it. 

"The small arrow killed," announced old Acmo. 

"It is the arrow of my son," said Kokop, proudly. 

So-winn, the father of Buli, called the others to 
him as he knelt beside the body of the animal. 

"Look !" he said, "it is the lame wolf, — the one 
whose tracks we found in the village. It is the evil 
one, Kwewe." 







CHAPTER IX 

THE FAMINE 

With the wolfskin on his shoulder, Kwahu walked 
into the village. By the doorway of his home he 
dropped his burden. 

"See," he said proudly, " I bring the skin of Kwewe 
the wolf. I am now a hunter." 

"What you tell is truth," said his mother. "You 
have killed the wolf that many hunters have tried 
in vain to kill." 

Kwahu knew that So-winn, father of Buli the 
Butterfly, had spread the news throughout the vil- 
lage. He went down to the open space surrounded 
by the great group of houses; he crossed it and 
climbed up the ladders to the third story in search 
of his friend Tabo, all the time pretending not to 
hear the praise of the people. 

He was glad he had killed the wolf, and he was 
proud because the people pointed to him and said 

91 



92 KWAHU 

he was the bravest boy in the village. He walked 
very straight and was happy. At the door of Kilo, 
the arrow-maker, he found his young friend. Tabo 
jumped up and ran to him. 

"Tell me how you killed Kwewe," he cried. 

The boys went to a quiet place and sat down. 
Before Kwahu had talked more than a few minutes, 
the other boys of the pueblo gathered around them. 
He told them all just how he had killed the wolf. 
He had long been the leader of the boys, and he now 
became their hero. 

That night he quietly went out from his home, 
telling nobody. Near the Sacred Wall he met Tabo, 
and together they went to the place where they knew 
the medicine men were praying for rain. Without 
being seen, they watched the medicine men swing 
their slabs of wood around their heads and make 
their own lightning by striking stones together in the 
dark. When they went home, they felt sure that 
soon water would fall from the skies, the corn would 
grow, and the famine would come to an end. 

The next day and for many days, not only Kwahu 
and Tabo, but all the people of the pueblo watched 



THE FAMINE 93 

the skies for signs of rain clouds. They watched ; 
they prayed ; they made many smoke offerings, 
and held the dances that they thought would please 
the Spirits of the Sky, but no rain fell. 

Kwahu knew that Tabo had been right when he 
said that in Walpi it would be as it had been at the 
time that the medicine man had told them of when 
Kokop was a boy. As the people of the tribe then 
had little water to drink and little corn to eat and 
were starving, so it was now. 

The Sacred Well was now only a hole in the ground 
and dry, the rooms where the corn had been stored 
were empty ; the berries did not grow on the bushes. 
The animals and birds had gone to other places in 
search of food and drink, and the hunters came 
home with empty hands. The faces of the people 
were pinched with hunger, and the bodies of the 
children were thin, like twigs of willow. 

One afternoon a runner from another Hopi village 
to the south came panting up the steep trail that led 
to the top of the mesa. His face was thin and hag- 
gard, like the faces of all of the people in Walpi. 
He staggered with weakness as he walked slowly to 



94 KWAHU 

the home of Kokop, the chief. That night all the 
people of Walpi knew that in the village of Awatobi, 
where the runner lived, the people were starving too. 
He told them that the wise men of Awatobi had 
decided that the reason the water did not fall was 
because a young girl, Ala, the daughter of Pan-u-wa, 
had bad magic and had "blown away the clouds." 

"Tuc-ti, our chief, and all the people of Awatobi," 
the runner said to Kokop, " are sure that rain will fall 
before the moon that is now young in the sky has 
grown to be full. For, to-morrow, the wicked girl, 
Ala, is to be put to death as a sacrifice to the Spirits 
of the Sky." 

Kokop was silent, but old Acmo said : 

"It is better that Ala should be sacrificed than 
that the water should not fall from the skies. Her 
life is one ; the lives of the people are many." 

On the morning of the next day, Kwahu started 
alone on a journey to the woods on the side of the 
mountain where he had killed Kwewe the wolf. 
His bow and arrows were in a quiver thrown over his 
shoulder, and in each hand he carried an empty water 
bottle. He had made many journeys in search of a 



THE FAMINE 95 

spring or a brook that was not dry, but had found 
none. This morning, however, he had remembered 
the brook which he had seen when hunting on the 
side of the mountain, and he resolved that he would 
seek it in the hope that it might still contain water. 

It was a long journey for a small boy. Before he 
reached the shade of the woods, the hot sun had 
blistered his half-naked body and hurt his eyes so 
that the trees and the rocks seemed to dance as 
he looked at them. When he reached the woods, he 
sat down to rest, and before he found the brook he 
was obliged to rest many times. 

The brook was not full, but there was still some 
water in it. He filled his earthen bottles and on 
his way out of the woods was careful to leave a clear 
trail behind him so that he could easily find the 
spring again. 

He had reached the foot of the mountain and was 
almost out of the woods when he heard a slight noise 
in a thicket ahead of him. He quickly put his bottles 
of water on the ground, took his bow and arrows 
from his quiver, and dropped flat on his stomach. 
He crept carefully and noiselessly towards the 




96 KWAHU 

thicket. What he saw when he arrived there sur- 
prised him more than if he had come upon a wild 
animal. 

He saw an Indian girl, of about 
his own age, sitting on the ground, 
crying. Her moccasins were torn 
into shreds, her feet were cut and 
swollen ; the one piece of rough cot- 
ton cloth that she wore around her 
waist was ragged and tattered, and her flesh was 
scratched and bruised in many places. 

Kwahu rose from his creeping posture and walked 
boldly towards the girl. He stepped so quietly and she 
was crying so hard that at first she did not hear him. 
When he was almost beside her, she heard him, 
jumped up, and tried to run away. Kwahu caught 
her gently by the arm and held her. She struggled 
weakly. 

" Do not waste your strength and mine by strug- 
gling," he said. "In this time of famine we have 
little to eat in our village and we have little strength. 
Do not fear me. I am a brother. Why are you 
here? Are you lost?" 




"An Indian (Iikl sitting on the Ground 
97 



98 KWAHU 

The girl stood still. Her face was thin and hag- 
gard, but Kwahu thought that he had never seen a 
face so beautiful. Her eyes were large, round, and 
black, but they looked frightened like' those of a deer 
that is hunted. Her black hair, long and waving, 
hung loosely over her dark, bare shoulders, and her 
hands and feet were small. Her whole body trem- 
bled, and suddenly she sank to the ground from 
weakness. 

Kwahu ran quickly to where he had left his bottles 
of water and returned, carrying one of them. He 
plucked a large leaf from a tree, deftly twisted it 
into the form of a cup, poured water into it from the 
bottle, and held it to the girl's lips. The drink of 
water revived her. Then Kwahu sat down on the 
ground beside her. 

"I am called Kwahu," he said, "and Kokop, 
the chief in Walpi, is my father. Tell me who 
you are and where your village is, and I will show 
you the way back to your people, if you are 
lost." 

The girl looked at him steadily for some time be- 
fore she answered. She seemed to decide that she 



THE FAMINE 99 

could trust him, and the hunted look left her eyes 
while she told him of her trouble. 

"I have run away from our village of Awatobi," 
she said. " I was to be killed as a sacrifice. I have 
visions that it is not given to others to see, and 
my people fear me and say that I have bad magic. 
When Haso, brother of Tuc-ti, our chief, was killed 
by a bear, I saw it all in a vision as I sat by the door- 
way of my mother, and I told of it. After the 
hunters had returned and all the village knew that 
Haso had been killed by a bear as I had seen it in my 
vision, many black looks were cast on me. Now that 
the water does not fall from the skies and our people 
are starving, they say I have bad magic and have 
blown the clouds away with bad magic. The wise 
men of the council ordered our medicine man to kill 
me as a sacrifice to the Spirits of the Sky." 

The girl paused and turned away so that Kwahu 
should not see the tears in her eyes. 

"I ran away," she continued," because I wish to 
live. The songs of the birds are sweet in my ears; 
the breeze that fans my cheek is like the caress of my 
mother ; the boughs of the trees, as they swing in the 



100 KWAHU 

wind, beckon to me; the leaves, as they rustle, 
whisper to me of the cool places in their shelter ; the 
rabbit and the fox, as they ran across my path, 
seemed to taunt me with their speed. I ran after 
them and was happy." 

She stopped speaking, and Kwahu rose from the 
ground beside her. His face was grave, his forehead 
was wrinkled in thought, and in his eyes there was a 
hint of fear. He knew now that the girl was Ala of 
whom the runner from Awatobi had told. He 
remembered too that old Acmo had said it was 
better that she should be sacrificed than that the 
people should starve. 

Ala watched him closely. She knew that he was 
half afraid. 

"Do not be afraid of me," she pleaded. "I have 
not the bad magic, and I would not stop the water 
from falling even if I had the power. Do not look at 
me as if I were a witch. When I see my mother 
and the baby that is my sister, dying, I make many 
prayers while the others sleep. I know that you 
will help me. You are brave. I can see now a 
hunter of your tribe standing in the doorway of your 



THE FAMINE 101 

mother's house. He is pointing to the skin of a 
giant wolf and telling a child, who is too small to 
understand him, that you killed the wolf." 

Kwahu was startled by Ala's vision. He knew 
that she had seen Buli the Butterfly and So-winn 
her father. He thought of the empty mouths of the 
people who were daily growing thinner and weaker. 
He knew that he was hungry and that his arm was 
not so strong as it had been when the corn in the 
fields grew above his head and the water was high 
in the streams; but he did not believe that this 
beautiful girl kept the water from falling from the 
sky and the corn from coming up out of the ground. 
He wanted to help her and yet he remembered again 
old Acmo's saying that it was better for her to die, 
and he did not know what to do. 

He stood looking down at Ala, who was crouched 
upon the ground at his feet. His heart pained. It 
seemed to Ala a long time before he spoke. Finally 
he said : 

"I do not want you to be killed as a sacrifice, but 
I do not know what the wise men of your tribe 
know, and they say that you should die. Acmo, 



102 KWAHU 

who is old and wise also, says that you should die. 
The Spirits of the Sky are mighty and they hold in 
their hands the lives of your people and of our people. 
If the water does not fall, we shall all die. It has 
been said in council that you have bad magic, but 
I think you are too beautiful and too good to blow 
away the clouds. I will help you. The Spirits of 
Good will guide me. I cannot take you to our 
village, and I cannot let you die here. I will leave 
one jar of water with you. When it is empty, you 
can fill it at the spring. I will bring you part of the 
piki and food that is my share in our village." 

He picked up one jar of water, slung his quiver 
upon his back again and walked off towards his 
home. The girl watched him as long as he was in 
sight. 






CHAPTER X 

THE HUNTED AND THE HUNTERS 

For three days Kwahu hunted in the woods where 
he found Ala. He shot or caught enough small 
animals and birds to keep them both alive. He 
fetched water from the spring, and built a rough 
shelter for her of the boughs of trees, laced together 
with strips of yucca. It was deep in the woods and 
well hidden. 

Her danger and his efforts to save her caused 
them soon to become fast friends. She was very 
grateful and tried in many ways to prove it. She 
had recovered from her first terrible fear of being 
discovered and put to death as a sacrifice. She 
knew that her people would search for her, but she 
had come so far from her village and it was so quiet 

103 



104 KWAHU 

where she was hidden, that she felt herself safe from 
discovery. 

Kwahu, however, knew that the hunters from 
Awatobi would find her if she stayed where she was. 
He did not frighten her by telling her that, but tried 
hard to think of some way out of the difficulty. 
Then he remembered the runner, Nucaki, who had 
given him the bracelet of sea-shells and colored 
pebbles, four years before. Nucaki had told him 
that if he ever needed help any member of his tribe 
would help him as soon as they saw the bracelet. 
He therefore decided to send Ala to Nucaki. 

Kwahu unfolded his plan to her. He told her 
that he would give her the bracelet and that Nucaki's 
poeple would be good to her. It was many, many 
days' journey to where the runner's tribe lived by 
the sea, but Ala said that she felt quite strong 
again and would go. She grieved to think that she 
must go where she might never again see her mother 
and her baby sister, but she knew that if the hunters 
from Awatobi discovered her, she would be sacrificed. 

The next morning, as Kwahu climbed to Ala's 
hiding place, he carried a light water-bag of skin that 



THE HUNTED AND THE HUNTERS 105 

he had filled at the brook. He also had a quantity 
of pifion nuts, and under one arm he carried a pair of 
strong deerskin moccasins which he had made for her. 

When Ala had eaten and was ready to start, 
Kwahu packed the rest of the food and wrapped it 
in cedar bark to protect it. 

"I will go one day's journey with you, Ala," he 
said, "to start you on the way. We will go through 
the woods at the base of the mountain to where it 
turns to the west. Where the mountain turns there 
is a deep ravine. You will go through that, still 
hidden from the hunters, and that will lead you to 
another forest." 

Then he told her very carefully how she was to 
travel after that. He fastened on her arm the brace- 
let that Nucaki had given to him and they started. 
They made their way slowly through the thick 
woods, stopping often to rest. The sun rose high in 
the sky. It began to slope downward, toward its 
place of setting in the west, and still they were in 
the woods. Suddenly Kwahu seized Ala and pulled 
her down quickly beside him on the ground behind a 
large tree. 



106 KWAHU 

"What is it?" she asked. 

"I saw some men at the edge of the woods," said 
Kwahu. " I think it is a party of hunters." 

They waited a few seconds and then peered cau- 
tiously from their hiding place. 

"They are hunters from Awatobi," said Ala. 
"Tuc-ti, the chief, and my father are with them, and 
I see others with them who are not of our village." 

"The others," said Kwahu, "are my father, old 
Acmo, and men from Walpi." 

The hunters came slowly towards Kwahu and Ala, 
beating the bushes and looking in all directions, 
but they did not see the children. 

Ala and Kwahu talked excitedly in whispers. 

"You must run, Kwahu," said Ala, and her voice 
trembled. "They will be sure to find me. If they 
find you with me they will think that I have cast a 
spell upon you with bad magic. They believe that 
anyone who is friendly to one accused of having bad 
magic is either under a spell or has bad magic too." 

"I will not run," said Kwahu, as with a bright 
light in his eyes he looked at the beautiful girl. 

A deer, startled by the hunters, dashed from a 



THE HUNTED AND THE HUNTERS 107 

clump of trees. It stood frightened a few seconds 
near the children and then crashed through the 
underbrush. Kwahu's bow was in his hand but he 
did not move. His mind was not on hunting. He 
was thinking of how he would miss Ala and wondering 
what he could say to the hunters to prevent them 
from killing her. 

"You must go," repeated Ala, and her eyes were 
full of pleading. 

"I will not leave you here alone," the boy said 
stubbornly. 

" I will run to the hunters then," said Ala, as she 
tried to rise. 

"I will run with you, if you do," said Kwahu, as 
he held her close beside him. 

"Let us run away together, then," said Ala. "I 
do not want to be caught, and I do not want them 
to catch you." 

Close behind the tree was a deep gully into which 
they slipped noiselessly and then ran as fast as they 
could towards the open end. Just as they were 
near the opening, two Indians, who had left the main 
party of hunters, ran in, and the children were caught 



108 KWAHU 

as in a trap. The hunters seized them and called to 
the others. 

Pan-u-wa, Ala's father, and the rest of the men 
came running up. 

Pan-u-wa seized Ala roughly by the shoulder, 
and shook her. Kwahu wanted to strike him, but 
he knew that, in the presence of his father and the 
other men, he must not do it or even speak until they 
had spoken. He walked quietly to his father's 
side and stood silent, but not afraid. 

"Ala," said Pan-u-wa angrily, "you bring dis- 
grace to your father. You bring famine and death 
to our tribe. You blow away the clouds, and when 
the Spirits of the Sky demand you as a sacrifice, you 
run away. Now you are found and you shall die. 
Then will the water fall and our people live." 

The hunters from Awatobi cast black looks upon 
Ala and Kwahu. They looked at them with awe and 
fear, and thought of the dreaded bad magic which 
they believed both the children possessed. They 
shrank away from them until there was left around 
Ala and Kwahu a group that included only Tuc-ti, 
Kokoj), Acmo, and Ala's father. 



THE HUNTED AND THE HUNTERS 109 

The children looked steadily at each other. 
Kwahu tried to tell Ala, with his eyes, to be brave 
and not fear. Her face showed no fear, but only 
sadness that he had been caught with her and was 
now thought to have bad magic. 

Pan-u-wa still held Ala as if he feared she had 
the power to escape even now. Kokop stood, with 
arms folded across his chest, looking sadly at Kwahu. 
Acmo looked from : he girl to the boy and back again 
with a puzzled expression on his face. He did not 
want to believe that Kwahu had bad magic, and there 
was something in the boy's face that made the old 
man feel that a mistake was being made. 

For many minutes not a word was spoken. The 
sacrifice of a life was a solemn ceremony among the 
Indians. It was usually attended with elaborate 
rites in the village. The sacrifice of Ala must be 
made doubly solemn. The Indians were very super- 
stitious, and they all felt that the gods were watch- 
ing them closely and that there on the lonely desert 
at the edge of the woods they were close, indeed, to 
the gods. 

Kokop was the first to speak. Turning to Kwahu, 



110 KWAHU 

he said, in a voice that was steady, but sad and low : 
"Did you know .that this girl was Ala?" 

"Yes," answered Kwahu. 

Kokop paused for a few seconds. Then he said : 

"You are my son and a part of me as my hand is 
a part of my arm. The medicine man has taught 
you in the kiva the things that you should know and 
remember. You have grown up strong and straight, 
as we prayed that you should. You are brave, and 
a hunter, and although your years are few, you have 
carried the hopes of our people through those years. 
It has been spoken in council that you would be a 
great, good, and wise chief when the time came and 
the gods called me to them. Now you are found with 
Ala, the girl of Awatobi who has bad magic and will 
not let the water fall from the skies when all the 
people are starving. It is a bad omen. It is not 
given to me to read the meaning of the omen, but 
it is bad." 

"May I speak the thoughts that are my thoughts 
and that make me know that I have done nothing 
that the gods would not wish me to do?" Kwahu 
asked, with his eyes still meeting his father's. 




THE HUNTED AND THE HUNTERS 111 

Kokop hesitated. Kwahu had been found with 
Ala, and yet he said that he had done nothing to 
displease the gods. It was not the custom 
for Indian boys to argue with their parents 
or to dispute their word or authority, but 
Kwahu was so earnest and Kokop was so 
anxious to have him prove that he had done 
no wrong, that he told him to speak. 

" I have seen food given freely and gladly 
to the stranger who has come to our village, 
even when there was little food. I have been taught 
in the kiva that it is good that we should do that. 
Four suns have risen since I found Ala alone in the 
woods. She was dying of hunger and her lips were 
dry like the beds of the streams. She ran away from 
me, but I caught her. She told me she was Ala, and 
she told me that which I already knew from the 
runner from Awatobi. She said she did not have bad 
magic, and I felt that what she spoke was truth. 

"I hunted in the forest and found food for her. 
I fetched water from the spring to her. When the 
hunters came, she pleaded with me to hide. She 
told me it would be said that I also had bad magic 



112 KWAHU 

because I had done friendly deeds for her. But 
the Spirits of Good had told me, as I slept, that I 
was doing no deed that I ought not to do. I would 
not leave her. I am sad, father, that I make your 
heart heavy. But that which I have spoken is 
true." 

The other hunters 'had drawn closer to the small 
group around the children as Kwahu started to 
speak, and they all heard what he said. Never 
before had any Hopi boy spoken so boldly of things 
that were held sacred, and they were silent. 

Kokop was much disturbed by Kwahu's words. 
In his heart he knew that Kwahu was as good and 
as free from bad magic as he had been before his 
meeting with Ala. The traditions of generations, 
the teachings of the medicine man, and his deep- 
rooted superstitions, however, raised doubt in his 
mind. 

"Acmo," he said, placing his right hand on the 
stooped shoulder of the old man, "you are old and you 
are wise. It may be given to you to read the will of 
the gods. Light my path with wisdom that I may 
not set my feet on the wrong trail." 



THE HUNTED AND THE HUNTERS 113 

"The boy has not bad magic," said old Acmo, 
after much thought. "If the gods had been dis- 
pleased with what he said, his tongue would have 
shriveled in his mouth like a leaf in the fire." 

Tuc-ti and Pan-u-wa had listened with the others. 
They talked together earnestly as they stepped 
aside. Then Tuc-ti called the medicine man of 
Awatobi and bade him to prepare Ala for the 
sacrifice. 

The council of the village of Awatobi had decided 
that Ala should be offered as a sacrifice to the Spirits 
of the Sky. Nothing that the boy, Kwahu, had said 
could change that decision. They had listened to 
him merely because he was the son of a great and a 
friendly chief ; but his words should not sway them 
from the path of duty. The sacrifice had already 
been too long delayed. 

Kokop, Acmo, and the other men from Walpi 
looked on as the Awatobi medicine man bound Ala's 
arms to her sides. He fastened her feet together with 
thongs of deerskin, and placed her upon the ground 
with her head resting on a rock. 

She did not speak or show in any way that she 



114 KWAHU 

was afraid to die. Her eyes sought Kwahu ; but 
he had turned away, unable to bear the sight of her 
suffering. 

Kwahu knew that his father, even if he wished, 
could not ask Tuc-ti to stop the sacrifice; for Ala 
belonged to another village. He also knew that the 
people of Awatobi, as well as those of Walpi, were 
starving because of the long drought. All the 
Indians, including his own father, believed that Ala 
had blown away the clouds and that the water 
could not fall from the sky until she was sacrificed. 

As Kwahu stood looking towards the east and 
praying, his heart gave a mighty leap ; then it be- 
gan to thump within him like the beating of a drum. 
Far away, where the plains seemed to meet the sky, 
he saw a small black cloud. It was moving rapidly 
nearer. He knew that it was a cloud like those from 
which rain fell. 

He turned quickly to his father, seized his arm, 
and pointed to the cloud. Then he looked at Ala. 
At the same instant the medicine man of Awatobi 
took in hand a great stone ax to strike the blows 
that would end Ala's life. 



THE HUNTED AND THE HUNTERS 115 

Like a flash Kwahu darted past his father, past 
the group that surrounded Ala, and, with a bound, 
jumped between her and the medicine man. Rais- 
ing both hands above his head, he cried : 

"Stop!" 

The medicine man let the ax fall upon the ground. 
He gazed at Kwahu, angrily and yet wonderingly. 
The hunters of Awatobi rushed up, while Kokop and 
the men from Walpi also ran forward and formed a 
circle around the bold lad. 

The people of Awatobi had been friendly with 
those of Walpi for many years. They had ex- 
changed many presents and had danced with each 
other in the sacred dances. But now the anger of 
Tuc-ti's hunters, because of Kwahu's interruption 
of the sacrifice and the quick preparations of Kokop 
and his men to defend Kwahu, seemed about to 
sever these friendly relations. A fierce fight might 
have ensued had not the cooler judgment of the 
older men prevailed. 

"Wait!" cried Acmo, addressing Tuc-ti and his 
men. "The boy is young and he acts quickly, but 
he always thinks straight. Look there!" and he 



116 KWAHU 

pointed to the cloud in the distance. "There is 
what we have all been hoping for. Let us listen to 
the boy, who first saw it, and let no feelings of strife 
enter our hearts !" 

Then Kokop spoke. 

"The lad is my son," he said simply. "It will 
be an honor to me and to my people, who are always 
friendly to your people, if you will let the boy speak 
his thoughts." 

"This is a great mystery to me and to all of 
us that are of Awatobi," said Tuc-ti. "What the 
brave chief Kokop asks of us, however, is already 
his right. Let the boy speak." 

The circle around Kwahu widened, and he stepped 
forward to a spot where all could see. 

"Speak," said Kokop to him, "and may the gods 
put wisdom in your head and power in your tongue." 

The boy was terribly excited and worried, but he 
stood erect and looked steadily into the faces of 
the men around him. He knew that if he did not 
convince them that Ala was innocent of bad magic, 
she would be sacrificed, and unfriendly feelings would 
grow between the people of Awatobi and those of 



THE HUNTED AND THE HUNTERS 117 

Walpi because of what he had already done. He 
prayed silently to the Spirits of Good, believing that 
they would guide him. Only the frequent clasping 
and unclasping of his hands gave signs of the great 
strain he was undergoing. 

He did not dare to look at Ala lest he might lose 
the thoughts that were in his mind. She watched 
him with wonder and admiration in her eyes. 

"I am a boy speaking among men," Kwahu said 
with quiet dignity beyond his years, "I ask much. 
I have planted many prayer plumes and I have 
made many prayers that the girl, Ala, be spared 
and not sacrificed to the Spirits of the Sky. The 
prayer token has told me that my prayers have 
pleased the gods. The black cloud which is coming 
this way is a good omen. It is a messenger from 
the Spirits of the Sky. I ask you to wait until its 
message is delivered. If rain does not fall from the 
cloud, then I am wrong and should be punished 
for my boldness. If rain does fall from the cloud, 
then I am right ; and the girl has not bad magic, but 
should be allowed to live." 

As Kwahu stopped speaking, every eye was 



118 KWAHU 

turned towards the cloud in the sky. It seemed to 
grow rapidly in size as the wind hurried it towards 
them. Then, as they watched, another and still 
another, and then other clouds, suddenly appeared 
and joined the first cloud. To the boy it seemed as 
if, in answer to his prayers, the Spirits of the Sky 
were gathering all their forces and that Those Above 
were sending the wind to hurry them on. 

The Indians silently watched the coming clouds. 
The sun was setting in the west and the mantle of 
night was beginning to spread slowly over the skies. 
Then the first rumble of thunder was heard and faint 
flashes of distant lightning were seen. 

Soon some large drops of rain fell pattering among 
the trees and were swallowed by the thirsty earth. 
Then suddenly, with a deafening roar, the clouds 
seemed to open, and a torrent of rain beat upon the 
earth and upon the wondering, awe-stricken In- 
dians in the forest. The Spirits of the Sky were 
appeased. The long drought was ended. 




CHAPTER XI 

HOME AGAIN 

Across the desert the two parties of hunters 
walked. Their tired bodies were given new life by 
the rain that had drenched them, and their feet, 
which had dragged heavily in the burning heat of 
midday, now stepped lightly in the cool of the 
evening. 

Kokop, Tuc-ti, and old Acmo led the way. Be- 
hind them, Kwahu walked. Next came Ala. She 
looked at the marks on her wrists where the deer 
thongs had cut deep when she was bound for the 
sacrifice, but she saw also the bracelet of sea-shells 
and colored pebbles which Kwahu had given to her. 
For the moment, the horrors that had tortured her 
as she lay on the ground waiting for the medicine 
man of Awatobi to swing the ax that would end her 
life were forgotten. In her imagination she again 
saw Kwahu rushing in between her and death. She 
seemed to hear again his daring appeal to the men 

119 



120 KWAHU 

of her tribe to spare her life. She looked at Kwahu, 
walking proudly before her with head erect and 
eyes directed forward, and there came into her 
gentle face an expression which meant more than 
thankfulness, and her lips moved in a prayer. 

When the Indians reached the foot of the many 
steps that led up to the village of Walpi, they stopped. 

"I would speak," said old Acmo, as Tuc-ti and 
his Indians were about to turn away upon the trail 
to the village of Awatobi. 

Acmo had once been a great chief, and he was 
now known in all Hopiland as a wise and good man. 
The Indians gathered around him and waited, si- 
lently. 

"I have lived long," said old Acmo, "and it has 
been given to me to see and to read many omens. I 
have felt the earth tremble and I have seen the 
great mountains split by the anger of Those Above. 
When it was much needed, I have seen the rain fall 
from the clouds after many prayers that pleased 
the Spirits of the Sky. There are some to whom 
the power is given to read omens that are hidden 
even from the medicine men. Since the last rising 



HOME AGAIN 121 

of the sun, a boy has read an omen that we did not 
see. Bravely, and at the right moment, he stopped 
a sacrifice that would have been displeasing to the 
gods. It is not yet given to us to know why these 
things happened so. The time will come when it 
will be made clear to us. Until that time, let us all 
remember what we have seen." 

While Acmo was talking, Ala stepped to the side 
of Kwahu. 

"This," she said, as she held out the bracelet to 
him, "is yours." 

"I would that you shall wear it always," said 
Kwahu. 

He slipped it again upon her arm. Then he took 
her hand and breathed upon it. 

As Ala walked with her people towards Awatobi, 
Kwahu watched her, thoughtfully. Then, turning, 
he climbed slowly up the rough trail and was soon 
at home again in the house of Yuna, his mother. 




Part II 
YOUTH 







A Meal Basket 



1 21 




KWAIIIT 

CHAPTER XII 

KWAHU TELLS TABO A SECRET 

From the top of the mesa at Walpi, 
Kwahu could look across the varicolored 
sands of the great desert that stretched in 
seemingly endless length more than four 
hundred feet below him, and he could see in the 
distance the outlines of the mesa on which the town 
of Awatobi was built. It loomed weird and myste- 
rious in the purple haze that surrounded it. 

It was there that Ala lived, and many times the 
Hopi boy had slipped quietly away from the other 
children and left them to play noisily at their simple 
games while he sat and looked longingly towards 
the distant mesa. Perched on a bowlder with the 
careless grace of a young animal, he spent hours in 
this way. His eyes saw but vaguely the home of 
the girl whom he so well remembered, but his 
thoughts traveled with the speed of the spirits of 
the winds and carried him to her side. His memory 
recalled the scenes of the day he had found her 

125 



iixo y^j x_o «,o 



126 KWAHU 

alone in the forest, the terrifying events that fol- 
lowed their capture by the warriors of Awatobi 
and her narrow escape from being killed as a witch. 

He closed his eyes as he remembered how the 

great stone ax had been 
raised above her head 
and when he opened 
them again he smiled happily with the rush of joy- 
ousness that came to him in the thought that she 
still lived. 

He was now fifteen years of age. The games and 
sports of the boys of the village no longer interested 
him as they had. He was still their leader, exalted to 
that position by his skill and by the fact that he 
had hunted with the men and had killed Kwewe 
the wolf. Nevertheless he was discontented. 

Tabo, his closest friend, found Kwahu poor com- 
pany but was always loyal to him. One day the 
two boys sat dangling their naked legs over the 
edge of the roof of Tabo's home listlessly watching 
some women weaving baskets and gossiping in the 
open plaza below them. Neither had spoken for 
a long time. Kwahu's mind was busy with thoughts 




"Perched on a Bowlder he spent Hours in this Way 

127 



128 KWAHU 

of Ala. Tabo, naturally full of mischief, soon grew 
tired of watching the women and turned to where 
some children were at play near a number of un- 
watched babies. Hopi boys are fond of teasing and 
of practical jokes, and Tabo saw many opportuni- 
ties before him. He would have liked to start 
some mischief but he knew that Kwahu wanted 
him to sit beside him ; so he waited patiently for 
his leader to speak. 

"We are no longer children, you and I." 
Kwahu spoke these words as if he had just 
reached that final decision after long thought. 
Tabo's eyes filled with sympathy, as he noted the 
dull voice of his leader and its tone of wistfulness, 
but he did not answer. 

The noonday sun shifted to the western sky and 
blazed fiercely in the faces of the two boys. Tabo 
looked longingly at a near-by shaded shelter, but 
Kwahu sat, unnoticing, with his lithe legs huddled 
up against his body and his arms clasped around 
his knees. Suddenly he rose and started towards 
the notched log that served as the ladder, or stair- 
way, down to the next lower elevation. 



KWAHLT TELLS TABO A SECRET 120 

"Come," he said, "we will go for a walk." 

Tabo followed without question. They climbed 
down two tiers by the notched logs to the plaza. 
Then they turned their faces towards the south end 
of the mesa and walked past the high, strangely 
formed rock close to which many of the religious 
ceremonies were held ; past the small square opening 
of one of the sacred kivas on the side of the plaza 
nearest to the edge of the mesa ; past the top of the 
steep and winding trail that led up from the desert 
plain below, and on beyond the last of the stone 
houses to the farther end of the mesa. There they 
seated themselves in the welcome shade of a 
bowlder. 

"Do you know," asked Kwahu, pointing, "where 
that smoke is that we see in the distance? " 

"Yes," said Tabo, "it is at Awatobi where the 
girl Ala lives." 

Kwahu turned quickly and faced him. 

"Why do you name Ala? Have you read the 
thoughts that are in my mind?" 

"I cannot read the thoughts that are yours," 
answered Tabo seriously, "but when you have left 



130 KWAHU 

us at our play and slipped quietly off I have fol- 
lowed you at a distance. You have changed in 
your ways, and the new look in your eyes filled me 
with mystery and some fear for you. I followed to 
watch and to be near if you should need help 
in what you were going to do. At first I did not 
understand why you came here alone; but soon it 
was given to me to know why, and I no longer 
followed you." 

"What is your meaning?" asked Kwahu. 

" One does not sit here often and long, merely to 
look at the sandy plains and the Awatobi mesa 
beyond." 

"It soothes the eyes like sleep," said Kwahu, 
turning slightly away from his chum. 

Suddenly Tabo jumped up in a rage of jealous 
anger. 

"You say what is not truth," he blazed forth at 
his surprised leader, and as he spoke his whole body 
shook and his lips trembled. "It is not the plains 
or the mesa of Awatobi that brings you here. It is 
the girl, Ala, who lives in Awatobi. We who have 
made you our leader, who have played with you all 



KWAHU TELLS TABO A SECRET 131 

our lives and have taken you into our hearts and 
shared what we had with you — we are not good 
enough for you ! " 

Kwahu tried to stop him, but Tabo kept on, the 
words tumbling from his lips in a swift torrent, as 
if struggling for outlet. 

"You throw us aside as my sister Buli throws 
aside a doll that no longer amuses her. We make 
up a new game in your honor, as if you were a great 
chief, and when the time comes to surprise you 
with it, you are not to be found. No ; you are off 
here gazing across the plains towards Ala ; and, for 
all you care, we do not exist ! We are nothing to 
you. We are only your friends, but Ala is to you 
like the daughter of the gods ! You - 

With a quick spring, like that of a mountain lion, 
Kwahu seized his friend around the body with one 
arm and placed a hand over the mouth of the ex- 
cited boy. 

"Stop, stop!" he shouted in Tabo's ear. "You 
must not talk so ! " 

There was a short struggle, but Kwahu being 
the stronger soon forced Tabo to sit down beside 



132 KWAHU 

him. Tabo turned his back to his chum and buried 
his head in his hands. His back trembled, and the 
muscles under his clear, bronze skin twitched, but 
he made no sound. 

Kwahu watched him sorrowfully until he grew 
calmer and then spoke to him, gently. 

"Tabo," he said, "you are my dearest friend, and 
I would rather that Kwewe the wolf, had killed me 
than that you should turn against me. I have 
not thrown you aside and will not, ever. But you 
do not understand. The gods have put something 
new and strange and wonderful in my heart. 
Sometimes it beats so hard and fast and so loudly 
that I think I can hear it and that it will burst 
from my body. At other times it seems to stop, 
and then I wish that I might lie down somewhere 
quite alone and wait for the spirits of death to take 
me with them back to the center of the earth, where 
the sun never shines and where the wind does not 
whisper of things which can never be ours, and 
where all is still." 

Kwahu's voice trailed off to almost a whisper as 
he finished speaking, and he sat looking sadly 



KWAHU TELLS TABO A SECRET 133 

towards Awatobi. Tabo turned slowly towards 
him and placed his hand upon Kwahu's shoulder. 

"I am sorry. If I can help you, I will. Tell 
me of Ala." 

Kwahu's face brightened, and after gazing some 
time towards Awatobi, he spoke: 

"When I first saw Ala crouching in fear in the 
forest, I wanted only to set her free from her 
troubles and let her go her way while I went mine. 
Now I want to have her with me always. I want 
to care for her, protect her, provide for her, and to 
grow old with her ever by my side. I did not 
know that I felt that way when we parted at the 
foot of the trail and she went with her people to 
Awatobi. I did not know it until many moons 
had passed. In my dreams I hear her voice ; 
I hear her laughter like the gentle rippling of a 
mountain stream over its pebbly bed. I want to 
build a house for her that shall be hers. I want 
to grow corn for her, and I want to sit in the 
doorway and watch her grind it and make our piki. 
I am already hers. I want her to be mine." 

Kwahu paused. Then he added : "It is told." 



134 KWAHU 

Like all Indians the Hopi boy was by 
nature a boy of few words. He had never talked 
so freely and never told so much of what he 
felt. Tabo thought long over what his chum 
had said before he answered. 

"What you wish for, Kwahu, is not a dream 
that comes out of the nowhere and disappears 
quickly into the nowhere. Something tells me 
that what you wish to be, will be." 

The boys rose and started back towards the 
village. "But I am not yet a man, and what I 
wish to do is a man's deed," said Kwahu. 

"You forget," answered his chum, "that when 
the sun grows cold and the leaves are stripped from 
the trees you will pass through the New Fire cere- 
mony and will then have the standing in the village, 
not of a boy any longer, but of a man." 





CHAPTER XIII 

THE WUWUTCIMTI 

From the time a Hopi Indian boy is born until 
he is buried, every important event in his life is 
celebrated with some sort of ceremony. As his 
life is very simple and lacking in variety, many 
happenings that would seem of small importance 
to the white man are really of great importance 
in the mind of the Hopi Indian. The ceremonies 
are almost entirely religious in character. They 
usually last for several days and sometimes con- 
tinue through the nights. The Hopi have a great 
and unshakable faith in the power of their gods. 
They believe implicitly that if they conduct them- 
selves as their gods desire, they will be granted 
the good will, help, or protection for which they 
ask. The shorter ceremonies are held during the 
spring and summer months when the Hopi have 
little time to spare from the labors in the sandy 

135 



136 KWAHU 

fields at the foot of the mesa. The longer cere- 
monies are held in the late fall and winter months. 

Among the most important to the Hopi boy is 
the Wiiwiitcimti, of which the New Fire ceremony 
forms a part. There were four great societies or 
fraternities (sometimes called priesthoods) in an- 
cient Walpi to one of which, at least, each male 
member of the village belonged. 

At length the summer was ended, and the days 
were rapidly becoming shorter as well as cooler. The 
corn had been gathered and painfully carried, in large 
woven reed baskets, up the steep trail to the second 
tier of the village, where it was stored in two great 
rooms. The cracks in the houses had been filled 
anew with adobe mud against the cold winds of 
winter. Fresh antelope skins had been hung in the 
doorway; stores of pifion nuts, dried rabbit, deer, 
and antelope meat and squashes, as well as quan- 
tities of preserves made from the fruit of the 
yucca, had been hung in each house ; a plentiful 
supply of twigs and broken boughs had been gath- 
ered for fuel ; and Walpi was ready for winter and 
for its long series of religious ceremonies. 



THE WUWUTCIMTI 137 

To many the Snake dance and the Flute ceremony 
were most important ; but all of Kwahu's interest 
was centered in the Wiiwiitcimti ceremony. 

For several days before the ceremony was an- 
nounced, he and Tabo gathered wood and laid it 
in neat piles near the ladders leading down through 
the square openings of the four sacred underground 
kivas. As they worked, they saw the chiefs of the 
four societies that control this ceremony climb up 
to one of the deserted rooms on the second 
tier to smoke and prepare prayer offerings. 
Later, one of the chiefs carried the prayer 
offerings, sticks with feathers fastened to them 
with delicate strips of yucca fiber, and a 
lighted pipe to an aged Indian in a near-by 
house. This Indian was a sort of town crier. 
At early dawn the following morning, carry- 
ing the prayer sticks, he went to the narrow 
place in the mesa near the head of the trail, 
scattered sacred meal across the path and placed 
on the meal a whitened elk horn to indicate that the 
gates of the village, as it were, were closed to all 
visitors and that any who attempted to cross that 



138 KWAHU 

line of meal during the several days of the cere- 
mony would be unwelcome and would be killed. 
Next, the crier mounted the roof of the house 
where the chiefs had met to smoke, and in a very 
loud voice announced the time that the ceremony 
would begin. His words carried not only an an- 
nouncement but also a prayer as follows: 

" All people awake, open your eyes, arise ! 

Become children of light, vigorous, active, sprightly. 
Hasten clouds, from the four world quarters. 

Come snow, in plenty, that water maybe plenty when summer 
comes. 
Come ice, and cover the fields, that after planting they may 
yield plentifully. 

Let all hearts be glad. 
The Wiiwiitcimti will assemble in four days. 

They will encircle the village, dancing and singing their songs. 
Let the women be ready to pour water upon them, 

That moisture may come in abundance and all shall rejoice." 

Tabo looked forward with glee to the fun of the 
public dances that would follow the sacred cere- 
monies in the kivas ; but to Kwahu the ceremony 
of his coming initiation into the society and his 
consequent rise to the sphere of manhood was a 
very serious affair. 



THE WUWUTCIMTI 139 

On the morning of the day that Kwahu was to 
be called to the ceremony he saw prayer sticks 
planted in the ground at the entrances to the kivas, 
and he knew that the chiefs were making ready. 

Could he have entered one of the kivas, he would 
have seen the chiefs making the new fire which was 
to consume all germs and purify all who 
participated in the ceremony. The fire was 
kindled with fire sticks which were rubbed 
together quickly and hard until a spark 
dropped upon the shredded cedar bark or 
dried grass placed ready for it. It would 
be kept constantly burning by an old man 
who never left it but sat crouched beside 
it, constantly replenishing it with the wood 
which Kwahu and the other boys had gath- 
ered. 

All that day Kwahu nervously waited in 
his home for the summons to the kiva. * 
Just at sunset old Acmo led him to the opening of 
the kiva. There he took off his moccasins and threw 
a handful of meal upon the fire burning in the kiva. 
With his hair hanging loosely, and quite naked, he 



140 KWAHU 

placed his foot on the first rung of the ladder. Im- 
mediately he was seized by two Indians and carried 
down the ladder to a corner, where he was placed 
upon an outspread blanket. An emblem made of 
a woodpecker's feather was fastened to his scalp, 
and all the men in the kiva began to sing, each 
group singing its own songs and all in different 
tunes. After these songs, prayers were said by the 
priests. Next, one of the priests began to climb 
the ladder, and Kwahu was motioned to follow 
him. When all had reached the surface of the plaza 
a procession was formed, which marched in zigzag 
style around the village. 

Upon his return to the kiva, Kwahu was rubbed 
with yellow mud and marked with a stripe around 
the leg below the knee and two black finger marks 
down each cheek. The members of the society 
carried their food from their homes to the kiva, 
where they prepared and ate it; but Kwahu was 
not allowed to eat or drink until the fifth day. He 
was placed in a corner, and a blanket was stretched 
across the opening so that he could not see the sun. 
He was subjected to severe tests, and many times, 



THE WUWUTCIMTI 141 

at night, was taken out under guard and made to 
run naked around the village, in the cold, sometimes 
in weird dances and at other times at top speed 
over dangerous paths. Many men, sometimes 
naked, sometimes grotesquely dressed, painted, and 
masked, accompanied him. Once he was kept out 
all night. It was bitterly cold, but he uttered not 
a word of complaint. 

On the morning of the fifth day a fine feast was 
spread in the kiva, with six kinds of food, and 
Kwahu ate for the first time since the beginning of 
his initiation. What seemed to him more im- 
portant than merely satisfying his terrible hunger, 
was the fact that he was permitted to eat with 
the other members of the society. He was now, 
except for a few final ceremonies, raised to the posi- 
tion of recognized manhood. He wanted to shout 
for joy, but he restrained himself and was careful 
not to speak until one of the men spoke to him. 

Early in the afternoon of the same day, Kwahu 
marched with the men around the village, visiting 
each house. Around his neck, like a necklace, he 
wore tufts of rabbit skin; and similar tufts were 




142 KWAHU 

suspended by delicate strips of yucca fiber from the 
pierced lobes of his ears. His hair was drawn to 
the front of his head in a conical coil over the fore- 
head and bound with corn husks. In his right 
hand he carried an ear of corn. They marched or 
ran in groups, singing a number of weird 
songs as they went, while one of the party 
beat violently and irregularly upon a drum 
made by stretching a thin piece of deerskin 
tightly across a piece of the hollow trunk of 
a cottonwood tree. All pointed with their 
^-** ears of corn at the women and teased 
them. The women retaliated by throwing water 
and other things at them. This procession pro- 
ceeded to an open space reserved for dancing, 
where Kwahu and the others danced steadily for 
more than an hour before returning for the night 
to the kiva. 

During the next four days there were more pro- 
cessions and dances and visits to the women of the 
village, but no more teasing or water throwing. On 
the night of the ninth day great bonfires were built 
in the plaza, and a general rejoicing was held. At 



THE WUWUTCIMTI 143 

its close Kwahu was escorted back to his home 
by old Acmo. He quickly fell asleep after the 
trials and fatigue of his strange experience, happy 
in the thought that now that he was acknowledged 
as a man, he could seek Ala as one rightfully seek- 
ing a wife. 





CHAPTER XIV 

IN AWATOBI 

In the home of Panawu at 
Awatobi, three maidens knelt 
before a metate, or mealing 
trough, grinding corn. Two of 
them sang happily and now 
and then stopped to gossip and laugh, but the third 
worked silently. She kept her eyes fixed upon the 
metate, and occasionally she sighed. 

When she had ground all the corn in her trough, 
she rose to get more from a pile in a corner of the 
room. It was then that her mother called to her 
from where she sat watching in the doorway. 

"Come to me, my daughter," she said, "and tell 
me why it is that while the other maidens sing, as 
it is well that they should, you are silent." 

Ala squatted in the doorway and lifted her eyes 
to her mother's face. Her eyes were large and 

144 



IN AWATOBI 145 

round, black and beautiful, but sad like the eyes of 
a wounded animal that fears the touch of rude hands. 
The late afternoon sun fell full upon her and touched 
with brightening fingers of light the glossy whorls 
of raven hair at the sides of her head and the firm, 
smooth bronze flesh of her straight lithe body. 

Her mother watched her long and steadily as the 
girl stood motionless looking off towards the north, 
where nothing was to be seen but the dim outlines 
of a distant mesa and a suggestion of endless sandy 
plains around and beyond it. 

The mother was old and wrinkled, her back was 
bent with the hard work of many years, her eyes 
were weak, and her hands feeble; but her heart 
was strong, and her mind was active. Her heart 
beat for the girl whom all but she had thought a 
witch, and her mind grasped truly, with the in- 
tuition of a mother, the thoughts of the girl. "You 
have waited a long time, my daughter," she said 
tenderly, "and there has been no sign." 

"I have waited a long time," replied the girl sadly. 

"You are now a maiden, ready for marriage," 
continued her mother, "and there are many young 

KWAHU — 10 



146 KWAHU 

men who come to our village whose eyes are often 
upon you." 

"They are to me," said Ala, "as if they did not 
exist." 

"They are worthy young men," ventured her 
mother. 

"I would say naught against any one of them," 
Ala replied seriously, "but the presents which they 
bring I refuse, and though they come again and again 
I will not smile upon them." 

"But," persisted her mother, "they are willing 
and anxious to marry with you, and it is well that 
you should marry. They seek you, while the other 
who is in your mind has made no sign." 

Ala thought long before she spoke again. 

" There are many birds in the forest. None directs 
how they shall mate, but, by the will of the gods, 
those birds that are intended to mate do mate at 
the proper time. I am now a girl grown to maiden- 
hood and, as you say, ready for marriage, but I do 
not feel that it is the will of the gods that I shall 
mate with one of those that seek me now. When 
the proper time comes I shall mate, and I hope that 



IN AWATOBI 147 

I shall mate as happily as do the birds. I shall 
know when that time has come, and I shall wait." 

The old woman nodded her head slowly, drew her 
blanket more closely about her, and turned away. 
The girl returned to her grinding. 

To Ala the days seemed longer than ever before, 
and she was lonesome. She performed carefully 
and faithfully the tasks assigned to her, but when 
they were finished she did not join the other maidens, 
but sat alone in her home or sought some unfre- 
quented spot far from the houses and the people. 
The sun warmed her body but not her heart; the 
occasional showers revived her physically but not 
mentally; the calm of the early evening commu- 
nicated no calm to her. 

In her many hours of solitary thought she pieced 
together the incidents of her brief acquaintance with 
Kwahu until they became a complete, vivid, never- 
to-be-forgotten chapter of her life, which in her mind 
she lived over and over again. Her memory picture 
of him was that of a strong, lithe, bright-eyed boy, 
serious at times beyond his years, but brave and 
gentle withal. She remembered his little peculiar- 



148 KWAHU 

ities of movement and speech, and wondered whether 
these had disappeared as he grew into manhood. 
She hoped they had not, because she liked them. 

One morning as she paced restlessly up and down 
a rough path at the north end of the mesa of Awatobi, 
she glanced towards Walpi and saw something that 
caused her to stop suddenly, shield her eyes with 
her hands, and look intently at a moving speck in 
the middle distance. Even though her hopes half 
persuaded her that she recognized it, she at first 
dismissed the possibility from her mind and con- 
tinued her restless walk. She glanced frequently 
in the direction of the moving speck. Finally she 
ran to the very edge of the mesa and, throwing her- 
self flat upon the rocks, fixed her gaze upon the fig- 
ure of what she could now see was a man. 
• Nearer and nearer it came, slowly but surely 
growing larger, while her heart beat fast alternately 
with hope and fear ; and long before she could rec- 
ognize his features Ala discerned a tossing of the 
man's head, a habit that Kwahu had when he was 
happy. 

She waited no longer, but hurried back to her 



IN AWATOBI 149 

home. Her mother was busy painting a food 
bowl. 

"He is coming ! " said Ala. 

"Who is it that is coming, my child?" asked her 
mother, bewildered. 

"The one who has been always in my mind." 

"It is pleasing to me that he should come," her 
mother replied, as she hurried to light a fire so that 
she might cook piki to offer to him when he arrived. 

Ala swept the floor clean and piled several antelope 
skins in one corner. Then she sat down on the east 
side of the room near the door- 
way to wait. She picked up 
a half-finished woven reed 
basket, but she worked slowly 
and her usually deft fingers 
fumbled badly ; and soon she 
set it aside and fell to toying 
with a curious bracelet that she wore upon her arm. 
It was made of small sea shells and bright-colored 
pebbles. It was the only ornament she wore. 

She had hoped and prayed that Kwahu would 
come to her, but always with the fear deep down in 




150 KWAHU 

her heart that he would not come. Now that she 
waited for the sound of his voice, which she was sure 
she would soon hear, she realized as never before 
how very much she had wanted him. She tried to 
think of commonplace things to say to him, but 
through her mind there ran only the one thought, 
"He is coming. He is coming." A' dozen times she 
thought approaching footsteps were his, but each 
time they passed the open doorway. Then suddenly, 
without having heard any warning footsteps, she 
heard his voice. 

"I have come ; I am here." 

He could not see her. He was speaking to her 
mother, who rose and went to meet him. 

"It pleases me that you have come," answered 
the old woman ; "come in ; sit down." 

As he stepped in through the doorway, he passed 
so close to Ala, without seeing her, that she could 
have touched him. Moved by an instant impulse, 
she rose quickly and slipping noiselessly out of the 
doorway behind him, ran quickly towards the north 
end of the mesa. Her mind was in a whirl. She 
was so excited that she did not want to meet him until 



IN AWATOBI 151 

she had had time to collect her senses, and she did 
not want to talk with him in the presence of her 
mother. She knew that he would find her. 

While she was fleeing from him, Kwahu stood in 
her house loosening from his back a sheath of deer- 
skin which he held out to her mother. 

"I come to marry with Ala," he said simply, "and 
I bring these poor presents for her, for you, and for 
Panawu. I am no longer the boy that I was. I am 
a man, a hunter and a warrior." 

" My husband and I are honored by your presents, 
and I thank you for both. My daughter may ac- 
cept your presents if she wishes. Ala, come to me." 

As she spoke, the old woman turned to where Ala 
had been seated. 

" She is not here. She is gone ! " she exclaimed 
in surprise. 

Kwahu concealed his anxiety as he slowly took 
the presents he had brought from their deerskin 
sheath and placed them carefully upon the pile of 
antelope skins. Then as he walked deliberately 
towards the doorway he said : 

"I will find her." 



152 KWAHU 

"If you would find her, walk to the north end of 
the mesa," suggested Ala's mother. "She goes often 
in that direction." 

"I shall do as you say," replied Kwahu; and he 
climbed down the notched log to the main plaza of 
the village. 

He looked up quickly at the groups of children, 
young men, and maidens who had gathered in curi- 
osity to watch him. The whole village of Awatobi 
guessed why he had journeyed from Walpi, and being 
fond of both gossip and jokes, they were ready to 
make fun at his expense. Kwahu knew this, and 
his glance rested on the various groups only long 
enough to assure him that Ala was not in sight. 
Then he turned and walked quickly through the 
plaza. Good-natured jeering remarks followed 
him. 

"I wish he came for me," giggled one maiden. 

"What would you do?" asked another. 

"I would send him home to bring a man in his 
stead," shouted the first maiden so loudly that 
Kwahu could not help but hear. 

" Ves, he is only a boy," shouted another. 



IN AWATOBI 153 

Kwahu paid no attention to these or many similar 
remarks, but when a young man shouted after him : 
"See, he comes for Ala, the witch," Kwahu turned 
quickly and started angrily after the tormentor, who 
ran to a place of safety where he stood performing 
a pantomime of mock fear and derision that convulsed 
the watching villagers with laughter. 

Kwahu stood for a moment undecided, and then 
hurried off on his search for Ala. Once beyond 
the houses, he stood and looked in all directions 
for signs of the girl. All he saw was a rocky table- 
land crossed by a single dimly denned path. He 
followed the path, and as it wound its way around 
a large bowlder, he came suddenly upon Ala. 
She was standing with her back towards him. As 
she heard his footsteps, she turned quickly and 
started as if to run, but he caught her arm gently 
and held her. 

" I have come for you," he said, with unembellished 
directness. 

Ala was silent. She kicked some pebbles nerv- 
ously with her foot, but she did not look at the 
young Walpi warrior. 



154 KWAHU 

"I have said that I have come for you," spoke 
he. "Have you nothing to say to me?" 

Ala drew herself up proudly, raised her head, and 
stepped a pace further from him. 

"Is it in your thoughts," she asked, "that I have 
been waiting for you to come for me?" 

" I have dared to hope only that my coming would 
not be unwelcome," he answered seriously. 

"Many young men come and bring presents to me. 
Why should not they also be as welcome as you?" 

"The presents which the other young men bring 
to you do not mean to them what the presents that 
I bring to you mean to me. Their thoughts of you 
are like the weeds that come up quickly; they are 
doomed to be short lived. But my thoughts of you 
are like the corn that grows more slowly but gains 
lasting strength with each day. The weed is torn 
up and cast aside without a thought, but the corn is 
not trampled down. It is tested, and if it is good it 
is taken into our homes. My love for you is like 
the corn and should be tested. Will you not test 
it, and if it is good, will you not take it into your 
heart?" 




He knew that he had received his Answeh 'I 
155 



156 KWAHU 

Without speaking, Ala turned her head away and 
shyly held out her left arm towards him. 

Kwahu saw upon Ala's arm the bracelet of sea 
shells and pebbles that he had given to her, and he 
knew that he had received his answer. 

They talked until the sun gave them warning that 
night would soon draw her cloak of darkness about 
them. There was much to tell of their doings in 
the seasons since they met, many memories to re- 
vive and review, and many plans to make; but 
finally they rose and started to the village. 

"It makes me glad that you wear my bracelet," 
said the youth. 

"I have worn it always, as you said that I should," 
the girl replied. 

"In your father's house are other presents for 
you, but here is one that I wish to give you now." 

As he spoke, he drew from a pouch at his belt a 
necklace curiously wrought of roughly polished 
turquoise and bits of quartz crystal, so dear to the 
Hopi heart, and placed it around her neck. 

"I have breathed a prayer for you upon each 
stone." 



CHAPTER XV 




THE WEDDING 

As is the custom among the Hopi Indians, 
the bride-to-be neither asks nor receives 
any suggestions from her parents or friends 
as to the selection of her wedding day. 
When Ala decided that she was ready to 
be married she notified her mother and at 
once her hair, which had been worn in two whorls 
or coils at the sides, was taken down and dressed 
again by tying it in two loose knots. Then Ala 
and her mother started out at once on the journey 
from Awatobi to the home of Kokop, Kwahu's 
father, at Walpi. Her mother, besides carrying a 
white ceremonial blanket with a red and blue border, 
which Ala would wear during the wedding ceremony, 
bore very carefully a flat basket of meal made from 
white corn. 

When they arrived in the late afternoon at the 
home of Kokop in Walpi, Ala's mother called out, 
"Take this!" and the antelope skin across the 

157 



158 KWAHU 

doorway was pushed aside by Kwahu's mother who 
answered, "Thank you ; come in." Ala entered, but 
her mother went to the home of Tabo's mother, whose 
guest she was to be during the ceremony. 

Kwahu was not at home. He was loitering in 
the kiva of the society to which he belonged and 
trying very hard to look as if he was not in the least 
interested in Ala's arrival. That night Ala slept 
with Kwahu's mother, and in the morning she was 
put to work grinding corn. Except for a few stolen 
glances the two young people acted as if neither 
knew that the other was present. Ala ground corn 
steadily until late in the afternoon. Then she was 
motioned to a seat on a pile of folded antelope 
skins in one corner of the house ; there she sat 
all the evening. Very little conversation was held 
with her during the time she spent in Kwahu's home 
before the wedding ceremony ; for the Hopi believe 
that the bride-to-be should be given the time to 
think about her coming responsibilities and, indeed, 
to change her mind if she wants to. 

All during the next two days she ground corn, 
but on the evening of the third day girl friends 



THE WEDDING 



159 



carried trays of meal to the door of the house and 
left them there for her. On the morning of the 
fourth day, which is called the wedding day proper, 
these trays were filled with ears of corn and returned 
to the givers by Kwahu's mother. 

Long before sunrise of the fourth day, Kwahu's 
mother awakened Ala, and at about the same time 
Ala's mother arrived. Kwahu and his father then 
arose, and soon a number of female relatives of both 
families began to arrive, singly and in pairs, each 
carrying a small vessel filled with water. A large 
vessel of boiling water stood before the fire that 
Kwahu's mother had built in the middle of the room. 
Most of the women gathered around Ala, while 
Kwahu sat beside his father, who was the only man 
present. 

The mothers of 
the two young 
people at once be- 
gan to prepare, in 
two large bowls, a suds made with the pounded 
roots of yucca, adding warm water from the vessel 
by the fire. While this was being done, one of the 





160 KWAHU 

women untied Ala's hair and shook it out. The 
bowls of suds were then placed side by side near 
the center of the room and Ala and Kwahu were 
gently pushed towards them. Each knelt on a folded 
skin before a bowl. Opposite Ala, Kwahu's mother 
knelt, and opposite Kwahu was Ala's mother. 

The two women then began to thoroughly wash 
the heads of the young people, and in this ceremony 
they were helped from time to time by nearly all of 
the women in the room. After the heads of the two 

had been washed in indi- 
vidual bowls, a single bowl 
was substituted and their 
hair dipped together into 
it and washed again. Al- 
though other ceremonies were to follow in the course 
of the wedding celebration, this washing of the hair 
together in one bowl was really the actual marrying 
act, as it was supposed to make them one. 

During the double hair washing there was much 
fun and laughter. Several of the women tried to 
force themselves in between Kwahu and Ala and 
pretended to take Ala's place. Kwahu was dressed 




THE WEDDING 161 

as he always was, but Ala wore over her left shoulder 
the beautiful white ceremonial blanket with red 
and blue border that her mother had brought from 
Awatobi. 

When this ceremony was ended, Kwahu rose 
and returned to his father's side, while Ala went over 
and sat on the pile of skins at the other side of the 
room. Then Ala's father entered. There were 
greetings, but no congratulations. 

The bowls were next filled with fresh water. 
Kwahu's mother took off Ala's white blanket and 
invited her to kneel again by her 
bowl. Then, assisted by the other 
women, she washed first the upper 
part of Ala's body and then her 
feet. Next Ala was sent to sit beside the fire to 
dry and get warm, and Kwahu was made to kneel 
beside his bowl where he was 




, washed in much the same way. 

*.Vt^piii v , ■/ Then the women poured over them 

^( the water they had brought in their 

small vessels, after which Kwahu went and sat 

beside Ala in front of the fire. 

KWAHU 11 



162 KWAHU 

A little while later, just as the sun was rising, 
Kwahu's mother handed them each a pinch of 
meal. They went together out of the house, down 
the notched logs, and across the plaza to the very 
edge of the mesa where they threw the meal over the 
edge towards the rising sun. Before they sprinkled 
the meal they held it to their lips and each breathed a 
silent prayer for a long and prosperous life. 

Upon their return to Kwahu's home, most of the 
visitors went away. Ala's mother built a fire under 
the piki stone, and then she too went away. Ala 
took meal and made a large quantity of piki, or 
paper bread, and also assisted Kwahu's mother in 
the preparation of the morning meal, which was in 
reality the wedding feast. When this meal was 
prepared the guests at the ceremony and other 
visitors came and ate of it. The floor, swept per- 
fectly clean, served as a table. 

Although Ala and Kwahu laughed and joked 
with the visitors, they were really at heart very sober. 
When Ala was not busy passing around the food, 
Kwahu sat very close to her and looked at her in a 
way that pleased her very much. They did not 



THE WEDDING 163 

dare try to talk very much because they knew that 
the visitors were only waiting for a chance to overhear 
,some sentimental remark and to tease them un- 
mercifully. 

After the feast was eaten, however, they were left 
alone for a while. Kokop took a bag of cotton and 
ran through the village to distribute it to friends who 
picked the seeds out of it and returned it. Later 
it would be made into ceremonial garments to be 
worn in other features of the wedding celebration 
which would last for six or eight weeks. 

Now that their relatives and friends had departed, 
the young couple were left alone in the house. They 
sat silent by the fire for a long time, each busy with 
thoughts of the new life before them. Finally 
Kwahu rose and, drawing Ala to her feet, led her 
to the doorway. 

"See," he said. "Look about you at the sun, at 
the sky, and at the growing corn at the foot of the 
mesa. The sun is not brighter than your smile. 
The sun warms my body, but your smile warms my 
heart. The sky is not more clear than your eyes, 
nor is it so beautiful to me. The corn grows and 



164 KWAHU 

our people tend it carefully, but the time comes when 
it is cut down and is no more. My love for you 
grows even faster and stronger than the corn and 
it is a thing most precious to me, but the time will 
never come when it will be no more. It will live 
always." 

As Kwahu spoke, Ala moved closer to him until, 
where the sun had cast two shadows on the floor 
of the room behind them, there was now only one 
shadow. When he ceased speaking, Ala placed her 
arm upon his shoulder and said, "You are good to 
me, my husband." 

It was the first time that she had called him 
husband. He turned quickly towards her; their 
hands met and remained clasped while they con- 
tinued to talk. 

"The eagle builds a nest for its mate. He hunts 
for it and protects it. The wild animals of the forest 
do likewise. Why should not I, to whom you are 
more truly a mate, do at least what the birds and the 
animals do." 

"What you tell me," said Ala, "is more wel- 
come than is the water that falls in the dry season. 



THE WEDDING 165 

It sounds sweeter than the song of the bluebird — 
and I am happy." 

"When the clouds come in our sky — " 

Kwahu ceased speaking suddenly as he felt Ala's 
body tremble against his. 

"What has frightened you, my shy fawn?" he 
asked. 

"The clouds, the clouds," she cried in a gasping 
voice. "Let us not speak of them. They make me 
remember the day when you saved me from the 
sacrifice. The thought that I owe my life to you is 
sweet, but I do not like to think of how nearly we 
were separated forever. And then - 

She paused. 

"And then — what?" asked Kwahu, puzzled 
and worried by the fear in her eyes. 

" Do your people - 

She paused again and buried her head against his 
shoulder. 

He raised her head and held her face so that he 
could look straight into her eyes. 

"Tell me," he said very gently, stroking her hair, 
"what it is that is in your thoughts." 



166 KWAHU 

She bore his searching gaze steadily and what she 
saw in his eyes gave her strength and hope. Clasp- 
ing one of his hands in both of hers, she said, almost 
in a whisper : 

"Do your people still think I am a witch ?" 

A frown furrowed his forehead for a second. Then 
he smiled and patted her cheek. 

"Do they treat you as if they thought so?" 

" No, your people could do no more for me to make 
me feel as if this village was my village and I was one 
of your people." 

" You are truly one of our people, and all the village 
is glad. See, here come more of our maidens to 
bring presents to you." 

Kwahu pointed to a group of girls who were 
bringing various large and small objects as wedding 
gifts. 

After the girls had gone Tabo, followed by most of 
the boys of the village, approached and formed a 
semicircle in front of Kwahu and Ala. Each boy 
kept his hands behind him and all tried to look very 
solemn, but the smiles that struggled on their lips 
warned Kwahu to look out for some practical joke 



THE WEDDING 167 

and he shifted his position slightly so that Ala was 
behind him. 

" You have come ? You are here ? " asked Kwahu. 

"Yes," answered Tabo, who seemed to be the 
selected spokesman. "We have come. We are 
here!" 

" For what reason have you come ?" asked Kwahu. 

"We come to offer a present to your wife," an- 
swered Tabo. 

"Not to me also?" asked Kwahu, smiling, but 
mystified. 

"Not to you also," answered Tabo. "It is 
something that by our laws must belong to your 
wife and not to you, so we want to offer it to her." 

Ala stepped from behind her husband and took 
one step towards the semicircle of boys. 

"I am here," she said, "and whatever you offer 
to me I will take and always prize." 

It was the first time that the boys had met Ala, 
although they had watched her somewhat jealously 
from a distance. Her gracious manner and her 
friendly smile met answering smiles and sheepish 
grins that proved a friendship well begun. 



168 KWAHU 

When Tabo spoke again he talked very fast, as if 
in fear that he would forget a speech which he had 
evidently learned with great care. 

"We have no skins, blankets, beads, or eagle 
feathers to give to you," he said, "but we offer you all 
that we have." 

He paused, as if by a prearranged signal, and all 
the boys thrust their hands outward, palms up, 
towards Ala. Then, after looking around the 
semicircle to see that every hand was extended, 
Tabo continued. 

"We have only our hands, but we offer them to 
build for you a house in which we hope that you will 
live happily for many seasons." 

Both Ala and Kwahu were surprised and pleased. 
Ala nudged Kwahu and motioned him to answer 
Tabo's speech; but he only smiled and whispered 
to her that the present was being offered to her and 
not to him. She therefore stepped to the center of 
the semicircle and sat down upon the ground with 
her feet doubled under her. Then she motioned 
to the boys to seat themselves in a circle around 
her. 



THE WEDDING 169 

"The chief," she said, "has his eagle feathers, and 
he is proud of them. The young hunters have their 
skins, and their breasts swell when they point to 
them ; the women have their blankets, which mean 
much to them ; but the house that you boys will 
build for me will be more to me than all of those 
put together. It will always be open to you and to 
your wives when you are married." 

Then the boys, all talking excitedly at once, told 
her of their plans and how they had watched the 
men build, and how their fathers would see that they 
built well. 

"Where will you build it?" asked Ala. 

"That," answered Tabo, "is a great secret." 

Ala laughed and disappeared into the house, soon 
to return with piki, dried meat, and pinon nuts 
which she spread before the boys. 

Kwahu stood with folded arms in the doorway 
watching until the feast had been eaten. Then he 
stepped into the circle. 

"For many many moons I was your leader, and we 
were happy together," he said. " Now I am a man 
and can no longer lead you. Many times have you 



170 KWAHU 

given me my wish, and now I would ask one last 
thing." 

"What is it?" the boys asked in chorus. 

"My wish is not to be given me unless it is the 
wish of all of you." 

"Speak!" some one shouted. 

"I should like to see Tabo your new leader," he 
said simply. 

Immediately the air was filled with shrill whoops 
and shouts and, before he knew what was happening, 
Tabo found himself in the center of a circle of boys 
who danced wildly around him, then stopped suddenly 
and formed themselves in a group behind him indi- 
cating that they would follow wherever he led. 

As they finally trooped down to the plaza, Kwahu 
and Ala sat down by the fire and began to talk of 
the house that was to be built for them. 




CHAPTER XVI 

BUILDING THE BRIDE'S HOUSE 

Old Acmo stood beside the ladder 
leading down through the square open- 
ing into a kiva. He was about to de- 
scend when Tabo and most of the boys 
of the village ran up to him. They 
crowded around him and talked and 
gesticulated excitedly until Tabo, now 
their new leader, raised his hand. When 
the noise ceased, Tabo spoke. 

"Kwahii, who was our leader but is 
now a man, has married Ala, and we 
want to build a house for her. For a long time we 
have all worked hard gathering stones of the right 
kind and rubbing many of them smooth with harder 
stones. We have dragged heavy logs, for roof beams, 
close to the place where we want to build and have 
hidden them there. Will you direct the ceremony 
of building and ask some of the men to help us 

171 




172 KWAHU 

with the harder work that our arms are not strong 
enough to do?" 

"It is a pleasing thing for you to think of," an- 
swered old Acmo. "I will help you. Does Ala 
know?" 

"We told her," said Tabo. 

Then he told the old man of their meeting with 
Ala and of their plans. 

"Where do you want to build this house?" Acmo 
asked. 

"At the south end of the mesa." 

"Why there?" 

"It is a secret," answered the youthful leader, 
"but Ala and Kwahu will be pleased." 

Early the next morning old Acmo and many of 
the young men of the village went with Tabo and 
the boys to the south end of the mesa to the spot 
selected for the new house. It was close to the 
bowlder where the chums had sat when Kwahu first 
told Tabo of his feelings toward Ala. The boys 
did not understand why Tabo had selected this 
spot, but as he was their leader and it was his plan, 
they made no objections. 



BUILDING THE BRIDE'S HOUSE 173 

Obeying old Acmo's directions, Tabo paced off 
the dimensions of the house, about ten feet by eight 
feet, and small stones were placed on the ground to 
mark the corners of the walls. Then, while the men 
and boys carried or dragged the stones and beams 
from their hiding places to within handy reach of 
the outlined house, Tabo went to the home of Kokop 
the chief. 

Kokop, although he already knew all about Tabo's 
plans, listened attentively while the boy explained 
that they were ready to build and wanted the tokens 
that should be used. 

Kokop invited Tabo to enter the house and sit 
down. Then he took a small oblong wooden box 
from a ledge formed by a project- 
ing piece of stone, and from the box 
he took a number of eagle feathers. 
These feathers formed an import- 
ant part of the wealth of the Hopi chief and were 
so highly valued that they were used only in certain 
important ceremonies. The chief took four feathers, 
and to the stem of each he tied a string of cotton. 
Next he sprinkled them with sacred white meal, and 




174 KWAHU 

holding them close to his lips, breathed upon each a 
prayer to the sun and to the other Hopi gods that 
are believed to control their home life. The prayers 
asked for the good will of the gods towards the house 
to be built and towards the people who were to 
occupy it. Finally he handed the feathers to Tabo, 
saying : 

"Go. May the house prove strong and com- 
fortable. Place the doorway to the east so that the 
sun may brighten the greater part of the day and keep 
warm the feelings that are now in the hearts of Ala 
and my son." 

Tabo was about to run back to the others, when 
Kwahu's mother stopped him to hand him two 
bowls partially filled with food, another bowl filled 
with piki crumbs and fragments of food, and a hand- 
ful of white meal. 

"Acmo," she said, "will tell you what to do with 
these." 

Then the boy hurried to the south end of the 
mesa. He placed the four eagle feathers, the two 
bowls of food, the bowl of piki crumbs, and the white 
meal at the feet of old Acmo and waited. 




BUILDING THE BRIDE'S HOUSE 175 

The old man took up the white meal and drew 
lines with it on the ground, marking the location of 
the four walls of the house. Then, under his orders, 
Tabo placed one of the eagle feathers at each corner 
of the house and with the help of the other 
boys placed a heavy stone over each feather, 
throwing aside the small stones that had 
first been placed at the corners to mark 
them. Next, the place for the doorway, facing the 
east, was selected and the bowls partly filled with 
food were placed on either side of 
what was to be the opening, to indi- 
cate the wish of the builders that there 
should always be food in the house. 
The boys were then called to old Acmo who told 
each to fill his hands from the bowl of piki crumbs 
and food fragments, to which he added tobacco from 
the deerskin pouch that hung at his waist. In single 
file the boys walked slowly around the outlined house 
from right to left sprinkling the piki crumbs, mixed 
with food fragments and tobacco, and singing, as 
they went, the house song to the sun : 
"Si-ai, a-hai, si-ai, a-hai." 




176 KWAHU 

This ceremony was intended to "surround the 
house with plenty" and had much the same signifi- 
cance as the placing of the bowls of food on each side 
of the doorway. 

Neither Ala nor Kwahu went near the place where 
their house was being built, nor did they speak of 
it to the boys or to the older people of the village, 
although they often talked to each other about it. 
Kwahu guessed why Taba had selected the south end 
of the mesa, but he did not tell Ala. She was pleased 
because it would be a little distance from the other 
houses, and she could not quite overcome the feeling 
that the people of Walpi still remembered how she 
had been called a witch in her home at Awatobi. 
Despite what Kwahu had told her and the presents 
that had been given to her, she felt that she was 
feared. She tried to think of ways to make the 
people like her better, but she could not. It was 
only when Kwahu was beside her that she felt at 
ease. 

She and Kwahu watched Tabo and the boys as 
they hurried off to their house building early each 
morning. Some of the boys smoothed the roughest 




BUILDING THE BRIDE'S HOUSE 177 

parts of the building stones ; others rolled them close 
to where Tabo and others laboriously lifted them 
into place; still others made mortar or 
plaster by mixing earth with water and all 
enjoyed the novelty of the work. When 
the walls were eight feet high, the men 
lifted the long pine tree trunks, from which 
the boys had stripped the bark, up to the tops of 
the walls and placed them in position, about two feet 
apart. They rested on the side walls, pro- 
truding a little at each end. Across these 
and parallel to the side walls, the boys 
placed small boughs about one foot apart, 
and over these again, in the opposite direction, they 
piled reeds, small boughs and twigs as close together 
as they could place them. Then they covered the 
whole roof with a thick layer of the mud plaster 
and, when that was thoroughly dry, they piled loose 
earth upon it and trod the earth down as hard as 
possible with their feet. A low coping was built 
all around the roof to prevent the earth from being 
blown away or washed down by the rains. 

The roof and the walls, with two narrow oblong 

KWAHU 12 




178 KWAHU 

openings high up for ventilation, being finished, the 
boys selected flat stones for the floor and then en- 
listed the services of the women who filled in the 
crevices between them with their mud mortar and 
plastered the walls in the same way. 

In one corner a fireplace was built with a hood 
or chimney that reached from within three feet 
of the floor to a small opening in the roof. 
Beside this Tabo placed a thin flat slab of sandstone 
which he had rubbed until it was quite level and 
smooth. It was placed with the corners resting 
upon small stones that raised it about seven or eight 
inches above the floor. This was the stone upon 
which Ala would cook the piki, or paper bread, and 
was raised so that a fire could be built under it. 
When the cornmeal batter was deftly spread in a 
thin layer upon it with the hand, the heated stone 
would cook it almost instantly. 

When the boys had put the finishing touches on 
the house, Tabo secured four feathers that had been 
taken from the eagle that Kwahu had killed as a 
boy. He prepared them as Kokop had prepared 
those that were placed under the four corner stones. 



BUILDING THE BRIDE'S HOUSE 179 

Then he tied all four of them to a short twig which he 
attached to the roof beams. 

The next day, Tabo, walking proudly in front of 
old Acmo, the men, and the boys, led them to the new 
house. Everybody inspected it inside and outside. 
Then old Acmo drew a line with meal in front of the 
doorway to indicate that it was not to be entered un- 
til Kwahu and Ala had taken possession. As he 
turned, with the others, to go back to the village he 
said : 

" It is well built and will last. It is big enough for 
two. When the family grows, another room can 
be built in front of this one and also one on top." 





CHAPTER XVII 

THE TELLING OF TALES 

A few days later a crier 
mounted the roof of a house 
on the upper tier and in a 
loud voice announced that 
on a certain day the cotton 
for Ala's bridal costume 
would be spun in the kivas. 
This announcement served 
as an invitation to the 
friends of the young couple to help in the spinning. 
Just after breakfast on the appointed day the men 
assembled in the kivas of the societies to which they 
belonged and were soon busy carding and spinning 
the cotton provided by Kwahu's parents. Part of 
the time, as they worked, they gossiped and joked 
about the affairs of the village, and for one whole 
afternoon old Acmo served as an entertainer and 
told them tales of his youthful adventures or recited 

ISO 



THE TELLING OF TALES 181 

to them some of the myths of the tribe that had 
been handed down to him by word of mouth by his 
grandfather who had heard them from his grand- 
father. 

One of the tales he told them was as follows: 
"A long time ago Pookong and his little brother 
Balo lived in Awatobi. One day they heard that 
two beautiful maidens were watching some fields 
close to Walpi. These two brothers decided that 
they would go hunting and at the same time try to 
meet these two beautiful maidens. When they 
arrived here the two beautiful maidens were just 
starting up the trail to the top of the mesa to their 
home. They were sisters, and they invited Pookong 
and Balo to go with them. They gave the brothers 
pifion nuts and piki to eat, and laughed and joked 
with them, teasing them a great deal because they 
believed that the brothers had come here to Walpi 
to marry them. Finally they said to Pookong and 
Balo that they would marry them, if the brothers 
would let them cut an arm off of each. 

" ' If you do not die, you shall then marry us and 
own us.' 



182 KWAHU 

"The younger brother, Balo, was at once willing, 
saying to Pookong : 

" ' They are very beautiful. Let us not be afraid 
to have an arm cut off.' 

" The elder brother hesitated, saying that it would 
hurt. But Balo said, 'I am willing,' and laid his 
arm over the edge of the mealing trough at which 
the maidens had been grinding corn. Then one of 
the maidens struck his arm a great blow with the 
sharp edge of a mealing or grinding stone and cut 
it off, the arm falling to the floor. 

"Balo's elder brother then at once placed his 
arm over the edge of the trough, and the other 
maiden also cut off his arm with her grinding stone. 
Now the brothers said, together : 

"'If we live, we will come after you. Hand us 
now our arms that you have cut off.' 

" The maidens did so, and the two brothers left, 
carrying their severed arms. Arriving at their 
home in Awatobi they told their grandmother 
what had happened. 

"'There,' she said, 'you have been in something 
again and have done mischief.' 



THE TELLING OF TALES 183 

"'Yes,' they said, 'we met two beautiful maidens 
at Walpi and liked them very much. So we allowed 
them to cut off our arms ; and if we get well again, 
we are to marry them.' 

'"Very well,' she said, 'I will make you right 
again.' 

" So she told them to lie down, and placing the 
two arms at their sides, she covered them up and 
began to sing a long low song. When she had 
finished the song, she told Pookong and Balo to rise. 
They did so, and found that their arms were back 
in place and completely healed. 

" The next day they proceeded to Walpi, to the 
home of the maidens, who were surprised to see 
them fully recovered. The elder of the two sisters 
was the prettier one, and Pookong wanted to choose 
that one. Balo objected, saying: 'Yesterday you 
were not willing to have your arm cut off, as you 
were then afraid, and now you want to have the 
first choice. I had my arm cut off first and now 
I am going to choose first.' Pookong consented, 
and Balo chose the elder sister and the prettier one. 
Pookong took the other, and they all returned to 



184 KWAHU 

Awatobi, where they were married and lived to be 
very old and always were happy." 

It was late in the afternoon when old Acmo 
finished his story, and soon afterward a young 
man looked down through the opening in the roof 
of the kiva and announced that a feast was ready 
for the spinners in the home of Kwahu's parents. 
Those in the other kivas were also notified of the 
feast and soon a throng filled the house. The 
food was served in large and small bowls and 
baskets on the clean floor. The visitors ate first 
and the family later. Nothing was left. 

The next day the spinners returned to their work, 
and the medicine-man took old Acmo's place as a 
story-teller. One of the stories that he told was 
about two maidens who lived in Walpi many, many 
years before and who were both in love with the 
same young Indian. 

"These two maidens," said the medicine-man, 
"were close friends at first and used to grind corn 
together, sometimes at the home of one and some- 
times at the home of the other, and at times with 
the other maidens in the open plaza. But when 



THE TELLING OF TALES 185 

they both fell in love with the same young man 
this led to disagreement and many quarrels be- 
tween them. They were the Yellow Corn-ear 
maiden and the Blue Corn-ear maiden. The Yel- 
low Corn-ear maiden was possessed of supernatu- 
ral powers and decided to destroy her friend and 
rival. 

"Very early one morning they were both going 
to a spring to get water, each carrying her water 
vessel. As they were returning, the Yellow Corn- 
ear maiden suggested that they rest a little while 
upon a sand hill. 

"After some time of resting she said to her rival : 
'Let us now play here for a time. You go down to 
the bottom of the hill and 1 will throw something 
to you. You catch it and throw it back to me.' 

"When her rival had gone to the foot of the 
little hill, the Yellow Corn-ear maiden took from the 
loin cloth that she wore a very pretty little wheel 
that had painted on it many of the colors of the 
rainbow. She threw it at her, but when the Blue 
Corn-ear maiden tried to catch the wheel it was so 
heavy that it knocked her down, and when she 



186 KWAHU 

arose she found that she had been turned into a 
coyote by the Yellow Corn-ear maiden's bad magic. 

"Then the Yellow Corn-ear maiden at the top 
of the hill laughed. She picked up her water 
vessel and called out, 'You have been quarreling 
with me about that young man, and this is what 
you get for it. Now you go about that way ! ' 

"The other maiden, now a coyote, felt very sad. 
She went back to her water vessel and tried to 
carry it, but she could not in her present form 
So she sat down and cried most of the time until 
evening. After dark she tried to enter the village, 
but she could not because the dogs drove her off. 
She walked around to all sides of the village and 
tried many times to enter, but each time the dogs 
drove her off. She was very hungry and began 
to wonder where she could get something to eat. 
It was in the fall of the year and she remembered 
that the people who watched the crops built tem- 
porary shelters close to the fields at the foot of the 
mesa. She therefore went in search of one of 
these, thinking that perhaps she might find food 
there. She found two ears of roasted corn, which 



THE TELLING OF TALES 187 

she ate, and felt much better. She wanted to go 
to her home but she knew that the dogs would 
drive her away; so she started off towards a place 
where she had recently seen the camp of some 
hunters. 

"She found the hut that two hunters had built, 
but they were away. She went in and ate some 
of the rabbit meat that she found there. She was 
very tired, and decided to stay in the hut and rest 
until evening. In the evening when the two hunters 
returned, they discovered that a coyote had eaten 
a part of their supply of rabbit meat. Soon one of 
them saw the Blue Corn-ear maiden, now a coyote, 
asleep in a corner of the hut. He wanted to kill 
her, for he thought she was only an ordinary coyote 
and had eaten their rabbit meat. With his bow 
and arrow he was ready to shoot, when the other- 
hunter suggested that they capture the coyote 
alive and take it home to their grandmother, Spider 
Woman, as a present. This was agreed to, and the 
poor coyote was easily captured. 

"Arriving at Oraibi they called to their grand- 
mother, Spider Woman, 'See, we have brought 



188 KWAHU 

you a live coyote as a present.' When they placed 
the bound coyote on the floor their grandmother 
looked very closely at it and said to the two 
hunters: 'Alas, that poor one. That is no coyote. 
It is well that you did not kill it. Where did you 
catch it?' They told her all about it and she 
then sent one to gather certain herbs and the other 
to cut some juniper branches. 

"While they were gone she boiled some water, 
and when the hunter returned with the herbs she 
took two hooked twigs and fastened one in the 
neck and the other in the back of the coyote. 
Then, having carried the water outside the house 
and poured it into a large oddly-shaped vessel with 
strange figures and designs painted upon it, she placed 
the coyote in it. She covered the vessel with a piece 
of deerskin, making holes in it so that the hooked 
twigs stuck through it. Then, placing her hands 
upon the deerskin in such a way as to hold the 
twigs, she chanted a magic song, twisting the twigs 
from right to left. By that twisting she tore the skin 
off the coyote. Then she suddenly drew the deerskin 
cover off of the water vessel and threw it aside with 




Theke, in the Big Vessel, was the Blue Corn-eab 

Maiden " 



1SU 



190 KWAHU 

the skin of the coyote. There, in the big vessel, was 
the Blue Corn-ear maiden, just as she had been when 
the Yellow Corn-ear maiden cast a spell over her. 
She was clothed in the same way and the whorls in 
which her hair was dressed were not disordered in 
the least. 

"Spider Woman asked her how she had been 
changed into a coyote. When the maiden told her, 
she said : ' You poor one. That Yellow Corn-ear 
maiden has treated you very badly. You must 
have your revenge.' 

"When the second hunter returned with the 
juniper branches, Spider Woman took the maiden, 
the juniper branches and the water into another 
room. There she bathed the maiden and gave her 
some corn which the Blue Corn-ear maiden ground 
into meal. 

"After several days the maiden was told that she 
should go home now, as her mother was crying for 
her. The Spider Woman went to the roof of her 
house and called loudly to the people, telling them 
that there was somebody that must be taken home. 
A great many kachinas, or ceremonial dancers and 



THE TELLING OF TALES 191 

singers, answered the call, and she told them the 
whole story. 

"The maiden was made to look very pretty. 
Her hair was put up in fresh whorls ; a new white 
blanket was thrown over her shoulders and she was 
instructed to tell her father to make several prayer 
sticks and give them to the leaders of the singing 
and dancing among the kachinas. 

"So the maiden was taken home. Her parents 
were overjoyed to see her again safe and sound, 
and the prayer sticks were made by her father and 
given to the kachinas. She rested all of the first 
day after her return but early the following morn- 
ing she went to grind corn, singing a little song 
which she had made up about her adventures. Soon 
the bad Yellow Corn-ear maiden heard her song and 
came to see her. 

"Now the Spider Woman had told the Blue 
Corn-ear maiden what to do and say. So the two 
ground corn, side by side, all day long, and any one 
would think that they were still the best of friends. 

"In the evening they went together to the same 
spring to get water. While they were filling their 



192 KWAHU 

water vessels the bad Yellow Corn-ear maiden 
noticed that the other girl was dipping her water with 
an odd-looking little vessel that the Spider Woman 
had given to her, and that the water, as she dipped 
it, looked very beautiful, as though filled with rain- 
bow colors. 

" ' What have you there ? Let me see that little 
cup,' she said. 

"'Yes/ said the Blue Corn-ear maiden, 'that is 
a very pretty cup, and the water tastes good from 
it, too.' 

"Thereupon she drank from it and handed it to 
the Yellow Corn-ear maiden, who also drank from 
it and immediately fell down and became a snake. 

"'There, now, you may remain as you are,' the 
Blue Corn-ear maiden said. 'You tried to destroy 
me, but you will have to keep the shape which you 
now have because, being now a snake, no one will 
pick you up and restore you.' 

"So saying, she filled her water vessel, laughed, 
and went back to the village. 

"The snake left the place and wandered around. 
It got very hungry but, as it could not move fast, 



THE TELLING OF TALES 103 

it had a great deal of trouble in catching the rabbits, 
squirrels, and small birds which formed its food. 

"The Blue Corn-ear maiden was afterwards 
married to the young man of her choice; but this 
bad Yellow Corn-ear maiden, in the form of a snake, 
was found crawling about the village and was killed." 

When the medicine-man had finished telling 
his tale the others sat silent for a long time, nod- 
ding their heads slowly and thinking it over. Then 
cne said : 

"It is well told. You gave strength and speed to 
our hands." 

After a pause another rose and said : 

"The cotton is ready. Let us go now to the 
other kivas and see what they have done." 

So they climbed up the ladder to the plaza, and 
going to the different kivas learned that the others 
had finished their work. All the cotton was ready. 
It was taken to the home of Kwahu, and many days 
later the work of making it into a costume which 
Ala would wear and carry with her wrapped up in 
a mat of reeds when she went back to her own, was 
finished. 

KWAHU 13 




CHAPTER XVIII 

UNREST AND DANGER 

Kwahu's father, Kokop the chief, 
had set aside a house on the second 
tier for the use of the young married 
couple until such time as they were 
ready to go to the new house. On the 
morning of the day after the completed bridal outfit 
had been presented to Ala, all the people of the vil- 
lage gathered where they could watch Ala during 
the final ceremony of the long marriage celebration. 
It was on that morning that her "going home" was 
to take place. When the time arrived, all the young 
women who had been married during the year put 
on their wedding blankets in honor of the new bride 
and joined the group of watchers. 

When Ala appeared in the doorway of Kwahu's 
mother's house, shortly before sunrise, she wore one 
of her ceremonial wedding blankets. It was white, 
with a red and blue border, and was passed over her 

194 



UNREST AND DANGER 195 

right shoulder and under her left arm where the 
edges were sewed together with threads of yucca 
fiber. Around her loins she wore a loose, short 
garment of plain blue cotton, and on her feet she 
wore the ceremonial deerskin moccasins with deer- 
skin leggings attached. Her arms were stretched 
out straight in front, and in her hands she carried 
another and larger ceremonial blanket and a white 
sash with long knotted fringes at each end, both of 
which articles were rolled up in a mat of reeds, with 
the sash fringes hanging out at one end. 

She walked slowly and quite alone to the doorway 
of her temporary home, paying no attention to the 
lookers-on. At the doorway she was met by her 
mother, who greeted her with the 
words, "Thanks that you have 
come." Ala then took off her 
ceremonial bridal blanket and her 
bridal moccasins, and the wed- 
ding celebration was over. Later in the day Kwahu 
joined her. 

During many days that followed Ala went with 
Kwahu to their little field at the foot of the mesa 





196 KWAHU 

and watched as he prepared the ground for the 
planting of corn ; she ground the corn in their 
home ; she prepared their meals, and did the hardest 
/r^> work that a Hopi woman does, that 

of carrying water from a distant 
spring in a large water vessel of clay 
which held almost three gallons. 
There was water running through a 
narrow, shallow groove hollowed out 
across the center of the plaza ; but that ran from a 
large reservoir built on the highest point of the mesa 
top to catch the rainwater, and was used in the village 
only for washing clothing. All the water for drink- 
ing and cooking pur-poses had to be carried from 
the spring. 

Kwahu spent most of his time hunting, loafing 
in a kiva, or sitting in the doorway of their house 
watching Ala at her work. As he watched her, he 
noticed that often she would stop and place her 
grinding stone upon her knees while her gaze wan- 
dered past him towards the point in the distance 
where the sky and the earth seemed to meet. He 
wondered what her thoughts were. 



UNREST AND DANGER 197 

One day when he spoke to her, as she sat idly 
dreaming, she started in apparent alarm, and he 
noticed a shrinking fear in her eyes. 

"You are unhappy," he said. 

"No," she answered after a pause, and returned 
quickly to her grinding. 

"You are unhappy," he repeated, "and I must 
know why it is so." 

Ala left her work and stepped to the doorway 
beside him. His arm slipped gently across her 
shoulder as he said : 

"Tell me." 

Ala looked up into his eyes and found that they 
were filled with anxiety and also with that wonder- 
ful look which always gave her comfort and 
strength. Then she smiled a wistful little smile 
and said : 

"Your people, these houses, the great dance 
rock, the spring and the bowlders, belong here, and 
your people know that they belong here and are glad 
to see them. I cannot feel that I belong here, nor 
can I feel that your people think that I belong here ; 
and so I am not at peace." 



198 KWAHU 

"It is not well that you should" — began 
Kwahu, but she quickly interrupted him. 

"My husband," she said very seriously, "should 
not believe that I am complaining. You are al- 
ways good to me, and your people are good to me, 
but I feel strange like the cub of a mountain lion 
that wanders into a cave which is not the cave of 
his parents." 

Kwahu pondered for a long time over what Ala 
had said. Then he put one of his thoughts into 
words. 

"Tell me. Has anyone said to you that which 
ought not to be said ?" 

"No, no," Ala hastened to tell him. "It is only 
that there is a feeling about me like a blanket that 
is wet with the rain, and that I cannot throw off." 

He drew her towards him and took her hand. 

"The light of the sun is no longer reflected in 
your eyes, your lips no longer form the smile that 
puts gladness in my heart and your step is no 
longer light like that of the fawn. I wish you to 
be as you were. Can I drive away this feeling?" 

"You can, if you will," she answered. 



UNREST AND DANGER 199 

"I will," Kwahu said quickly; "only tell me how 
and it will be done." 

"You are not speaking this to me only to soothe 
me as the mothers sing the Puva Puva to the baby 
that frets?" she asked, while hope and fear 
struggled in her eyes. 

"What I say to you I will do, I will do, always." 

Ala drew him quickly into the house so that 
nobody who passed could hear her request. 

"Let us go away somewhere, not for a day, but 
for many days, and be alone. You can hunt, and I 
will make much piki and carry it with water and 
other food and fire sticks and blankets. You built 
a shelter in the woods where you first found me. 
So can we do the same again wherever we may be. 
You shall only hunt. All the work, I will do." 

Kwahu could see how very much she wished it, 
and although it seemed a strange idea, he said that 
they would start before the sun rose in the morning. 

Then the smile that he had longed to see re- 
turned to Ala's lips and he was happy as he sat again 
in the doorway, mending his bows and arrows and 
listening to her as she sang at her work of making 



200 KWAHU 

piki and gathering together the things that she 
would take. 

Long before it was light in the east the next 
morning, Ala arose noiselessly and went to the 
spring with two large water bags made of the skins 
of young antelope. When she returned Kwahu 
was awake. They ate a hearty meal and without 
delay started off towards the head of the steep 
trail. Kwahu carried two bows and a deerskin 
quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder, as well 
as a rabbit stick of heavy wood made like a boom- 
erang. Ala carried a pack containing blankets and 
food and the two water bags. Her burden was 
heavy but she ran along beside her husband as if 
she carried only the weight of an eagle's feather. 

As they were about to start down the trail, they 
met old Acmo. 

"You start early and without warning," he said. 

"We go to hunt together," answered Ala. 

Kwahu stayed to talk with the old man as Ala 
went ahead. He told him all that Ala had said, 
and added that they would not be gone long. 

Old Acmo looked from one to the other and then, 



UNREST AND DANGER 201 

linking his arm in Kwahu's, walked slowly up and 
down the path for several moments before he spoke. 

"It is well," he said, finally. "Go; travel a dis- 
tance to the north. You will find food, and you 
can build a shelter as do the Navahos. Do not 
start back until she asks you to, and then travel 
slowly. She will then grow tired and will welcome 
the return to our village; and the people of the 
village will be looking for her sunny face and be 
glad to see it again." 

Kwahu understood the wisdom of the old man's 
advice, and nodded his obedience, as he followed 
after Ala. 

They traversed the eastern projection of the mesa 
for an hour, when Kwahu pointed down to where 
there nestled a group of stone houses on a terrace 
close to the top. 

"There," he said, "live the people of Sikyatki. 
They are not of our people, nor of your people, and 
they are not friendly. They plant their corn on 
land that is ours, and when the small crops that 
they grow are not enough, they steal from our 
fields. Evil will come of it." 



202 KWAHU 

That night they camped close to a little clump 
of stunted trees and sage brush on the desert. 
They built a hogan as the Navahos did, trimming 
three branches each with a crotch at one end and 
placing the crotched ends together and fastening 
them into a tripod. Over this they threw small 
branches and twigs and covered them with some of 
their blankets. 

Just before sunset on the second day they came 
to a low, irregular hill, which they climbed. When 
they reached the top they found that the whole hill 
was hollow, like the crater of a volcano, and that 
there was a great well of water down in the middle. 
They were both tired and thirsty, and the sight of 
the well was welcome ; but at first there seemed to 
be no way of climbing down to it, the walls of the 
inside of the hollow hill being almost perpendicular. 
At last Kwahu found a place on the easterly side 
where he managed to climb down. He tasted the 
water and it was sweet. Suddenly, as Ala watched 
him, he disappeared as if swallowed up by the earth. 
She called to him in fright, and soon he reappeared 
and beckoned to her to join him. When she reached 



UNREST AND DANGER 203 

the bottom, Kwahu • showed her a cave that he had 
discovered near the edge of the well. It was dry 
and large enough for them to sleep in comfortably ; 
and there they stayed that night. 

At dusk on the second day in the hollow hill Ala 
climbed alone to the rim to look about. She sat 
there for a long time looking off in the direction of 
Walpi and was about to start down when she 
happened to look towards the north. What she 
saw at first merely startled her, but almost in- 
stantly she realized what it meant and called fran- 
tically to Kwahu to join her. 

"See!" she said, as he reached the rim, "off 
there are camp fires. They must be camp fires of 
the Utes, and they would not be so far south unless 
they were on the warpath against our people. We 
must hurry back to Walpi and warn your father ! " 

Kwahu saw the distant camp fires and knew 
what they meant. Ala was right. 

"I will go closer to the Utes and see if they are 
painted for war. They may be on a long hunt." 

Ala protested, saying she felt sure the Utes were 
painted for war. 



204 KWAHU 

"It would not be well for the son of a chief to 
carry bad news that is not true to his village. I 
would be jeered and pointed at." 

"You are right," said Ala. "Go, and when you 
return I shall be ready to start home. I shall now 
go for your bows and arrows." 

She ran into the cave where they had slept and 
when she returned she had Kwahu's bows and 
arrows and her pack of food and blankets. 

Handing one bow and several arrows to her, 
Kwahu said: "If I have not returned when the 
moon rises, go home and tell them what you know." 

Before she could answer, he had started. She 
sat and watched him dodging from one shelter to 
another until he was hidden by the darkness. It 
was hard to wait alone in the dark, when she knew 
that if the Utes discovered him he might never 
return. It was the first time he had faced serious 
danger, and while she was proud that he was fac- 
ing it without hesitation, she wished that it had not 
been necessary. 

As the hours grew later, the stars disappeared 
from the heavens and, in the inky blackness of the 



UNREST AND DANGER 205 

night, she fancied that she saw great birds of evil 
omen reach out with thin, sharp talons to grasp 
her. The faint call of a coyote was borne to her 
from a distance; an owl hooted from his nest 
among the rocks of the hollow hill behind her; a 
snake rustled the dried grass near her ; and a stone, 
loosened by her restless feet, rolled down with 
sharp noise until it fell with a splash into the great 
well. She wanted to scream in her fright, but her 
Indian nature helped her to be brave, although her 
body trembled and her flesh was cold. 

When she found it impossible longer to obey her 
husband's command to wait, she began to arrange 
her pack and gather up the bow and arrows to follow 
him. Then the stars appeared again in the heavens 
as suddenly as they had disappeared. 

"It is a good omen," she whispered, half aloud. 

She drew her blankets more closely around her 
and faced the trail that Kwahu had taken. The 
stars seemed friendly and gave her new courage. 
Soon the yellow rim of the rising moon riveted her 
attention. Kwahu had told her, she remembered, 
that if he did not return before the moon had risen 



206 KWAHU 

she was to go alone to Walpi and warn Kokop. As 
she watched the moon grow larger and brighter, 
her mind was divided between going in search of 
her husband and going direct to Walpi. She argued 
with herself that if she went to Walpi and saved 
all the people from an unexpected attack by the 
Utes, she would not be helping Kwahu, who was more 
to her than all of his people. She glanced again 
at the moon and determined to go in search of her 
husband. 

Then she heard her name called, softly and 
cautiously. All the fear that gripped her, all the 
terror of the night, departed. Into her body new 
life was breathed, but she answered only one word. 

"Husband!" 

"Come ! " he whispered. 

Never had a voice sounded sweeter to her ears; 
never had her whole body quivered so eagerly to 
obey a command. 

She slipped quickly down the side of the hill and 
stood very close to him, her body resting against his 
as she looked into his eyes. 

"You are here," she said. 



UNREST AND DANGER 207 

"I am here," he replied. "The Utes are painted, 
and they are many." 

"Yes," she whispered, "but you, my husband, 
have come. That is all that matters." 

Kwahu looked down into her troubled eyes, re- 
moved her pack from her back, and placed it upon 
his own. 

"We must hurry," he said. "The danger to 
Walpi is great." 

"Travel as fast as you wish," she said, "I will 
not tire." 

Kwahu told her of the Utes, of their numbers, of 
their weapons, and of the part he hoped to take in 
the defense of Walpi, and Ala told him of her thoughts 
as she had waited. 

Despite the dangers that threatened them, they 
were happy; and they talked of their happiness as 
they hurried on towards Walpi. 




CHAPTER XIX 

A BATTLE AT WALPI 

,.#*CZ >. All night, guided by the 

|k stars and aided by the dim 

i / / / 

■■■■lr^\ \ light of the moon, Kwahu 



^If^^lH 1 anc ^ ^ a Raveled a ^ ^P s P ee d 
/^f|M^ : t towards Walpi, stopping only 
) \Y\* ^ occasionally to rest. Not only 
V^*%/^ 4 was the journey a long one 

across the trackless, sandy, rock-strewn waste, but it 
was full of possible danger. While they knew that 
every step was taking them farther from the main war 
party of Utes, they did not know at what time they 
might see or be seen by a possible body of scouts 
who might be anywhere between them and Walpi. 
The necessity for extreme caution kept their nerves 
keyed to a high tension, so that when they halted in 
the shelter of some scrubby sagebrush, just as the 
gray of early dawn was spreading over the eastern 
horizon, they were both worn out. 

208 



A BATTLE AT WALPI 209 

As they lay stretched at full length upon the 
ground Ala's watchful eyes saw a slight movement 
in another clump of sagebrush a little ahead. Wait- 
ing until she was quite sure that it was not caused 
by the faint early morning breeze, she reached out 
cautiously and touched Kwahu upon the arm. 
Kwahu did not start or speak. Her hand touched 
him so lightly at first and then instantly her fingers 
tightened so warningly that he knew she had dis- 
covered danger. She moved noiselessly closer to 
the young warrior and whispered in his ear. 

"Under a bush ahead of us is something alive," 
she said. 

Together they watched patiently for what seemed 
a long time, Kwahu in the meantime slipping several 
arrows from their sheath and fixing one to his bow. 
At length they caught a glimpse of the back of the 
head of an Indian, and from the arrangement of the 
three short feathers upon it, they knew that it was 
a Ute scout. The head dropped out of sight as 
quickly as it had appeared, and again they waited. 
Soon they saw the head rise again above the bush, 
and immediately Kwahu shot an arrow. 

KWAHU 14 




Thiy saw the Arrow btrike its Mark " 
•J 10 



A BATTLE AT WALPI 211 

They saw the arrow strike its mark. The Ute's 
head disappeared. For a time there was no move- 
ment in the sage; then there was a convulsive 
shaking of the bush, and they saw a hand reach out 
from its shelter, clutch the ground, and then lie 
motionless. For a long time Kwahu and Ala in- 
tently watched that hand. It did not move, and 
when they were sure that its stillness meant death 
and was not a trick, they crept cautiously from 
their hiding place. The Ute scout was dead. 

Kwahu took the scalp and fastened it to his belt. 
Then he and Ala carefully examined the ground 
near the bush. They found many footprints, but 
while some matched the moccasins of the dead 
Ute, which had a small hole in one sole, the others 
had been made by an Indian whose moccasins were 
new. Convinced then that there had been at least 
one other Ute with the one that Kwahu had killed, 
they were in doubt as to whether the dead scout 
had been traveling towards Walpi or had been on 
his way back to his main war party. 

The other Ute, or possibly several others, might 
be ahead of them towards Walpi, or they might be 



212 KWAHU 

behind them. Kwahu and Ala looked in all direc- 
tions, but could see no signs of an enemy. They 
crawled on hands and knees to the shelter of a group 
of small bowlders some distance ahead. There they 
consulted long and seriously upon the best course 
to be taken. Ala was brave and a good scout herself, 
and it was finally decided that they would separate 
but keep within calling distance of each other and 
thus reduce the chance of being discovered and also 
increase the chance of quickly spying out any other 
enemies that might be in their path. 

Sometimes crawling flat on their bodies, some- 
times creeping on hands and knees, and sometimes 
dashing crouched from bush to bush or from bowlder 
to bowlder, the two worked their way as rapidly 
as possible in the growing morning light towards 
Walpi. 

As the sun, fiery in its rapidly spreading glow, 
rose slowly and drove back the last vestige of night, 
both Kwahu and Ala turned their heads towards it 
and breathed a morning prayer for strength to reach 
Walpi in time. Both were tired almost to the point 
of exhaustion, and both were scratched, bruised, and 



A BATTLE AT WALPI 213 

bleeding. The journey that they had made leisurely 
and happily in two full days, they were now trying 
to retrace in half the time under great strain and 
anxiety. 

At length the full light of the new day showed 
them the grim outlines of the mesa of Walpi in the 
distance. They had hidden their blankets, the 
pack of food, and the empty water bags, and each 
carried now only a bow and arrows. As Ala was 
resting near a clump of brush, an arrow fell on the 
sand in front of her. She was startled, but lay 
perfectly still. She looked at the arrow, and her 
fears subsided, for she recognized it as one that she 
had made for Kwahu. He was signaling to her in 
that way, not daring to call to her. Soon her eyes 
found him, hidden some distance to her right. Seeing 
that she had located him, he waved to her to come 
to him ; and when she had reached his side they held 
another consultation. Finally they decided that 
they could now safely run the rest of the way to 
Walpi boldly in the open, for the Ute scouts would 
surely have long since returned to their camp to 
report what they had discovered. 



214 KWAHU 

The sun was high in the heavens when they reached 
the foot of the steep trail to Walpi. They looked 
up to the top of the mesa; but all the people had 
sought shelter from the fierce rays of the sun, and no 
one was near the mesa's edge to look down and see 
them. 

They had almost ended their exciting and painful 
journey, and now they found themselves so weak 
that the ascent of the steep, rough path to the mesa 
top seemed a physical impossibility. They called, but 
the breeze wafted the sound of their weak voices off 
to the north, and they might as well have whispered. 

"We must not fail now," said Kwahu. 

"We will not fail," answered Ala. "You have 
eased my feet at a sacrifice of your own strength so 
that now I will be strong enough, after a short rest, 
to climb the trail." 

"No," answered Kwahu, "I still have strength, 
and in a little while we will climb it together." 

So it was that Kokop, looking over the edge of 
the mesa a short time afterward, saw the two climb- 
ing up, slowly and painfully on hands and knees, 
one helping the other. 



A BATTLE AT WALPI 215 

Many hurried down with Kokop to where Kwahu 
and Ala were resting, and many willing hands assisted 
and half carried them to the top. 

In the home of Kokop they were given food and 
drink before they were permitted to talk. 

"I must speak," insisted Kwahu. "The Utes. 
There is much danger. They are — " 

His voice failed, and for a few moments he lay 
back on the pile of antelope skins pointing feebly 
towards the northeast. 

Kokop kneeled beside him, anxious but patient. 

"Ala discovered them," Kwahu resumed, when 
his strength returned. " They are many and painted 
for war." 

"See!" said Ala, proudly pointing to the scalp 
that hung at Kwahu's belt, "Kwahu killed one of 
their scouts." 

Little by little the story of the Utes and of the 
adventures of Kwahu and Ala was told. Kokop 
summoned the warriors to the kiva of the Warrior 
Society, and a council was held. It was decided 
that the Utes would probably make their attack 
just before dawn of the following morning, when 



216 KWAHU 

they would suppose that all in Walpi were asleep. 
The warriors were divided into two parties for de- 
fense. Kokop announced that he would lead one 
party and that Kwahu, having earned the right, 
would lead the other party. 

Bows and arrows were examined and repaired ; 
many large and small bowlders and heavy rocks 
were rolled or carried to the edges of the mesa close 
to the top of the main trail and near the only other 
possible point of ascent, to the north. All that 
afternoon, and far into the night, the Walpi warriors 
worked. Then Kokop ordered all to sleep except a 
few who were placed on guard against a possible 
surprise and others who were hurried to the other 
Hopi villages for help. 

Two of these sentries, hurrying from opposite 
directions, reached the home of Kokop just as the 
black of the sky was turning gray. Each informed 
him that he had discovered a party of the Utes, one 
party grouped on a ledge close to the foot of the main 
trail on the eastern side of the mesa, and one labo- 
riously trying to scale the almost perpendiculai- wall 
at the north. Kokop immediately summoned the 



A BATTLE AT WALPI 217 

warriors of Walpi, and in two groups they hurried 
to the positions previously assigned to them. Kokop 
took with him the medicine-man and more than 
half of the warriors to the head of the main trail, 
while Kwahu, with old Acmo, led his smaller party 
to the north end of the mesa. 

In the semidarkness of the early morning the 
Utes, far below, looked like gnomes or evil spirits 
of the night. Their dark forms seemed shadows 
and threateningly mysterious as they crept silently 
from one protecting rock to another in their slow 
ascent. Preferring peace, but determined that the 
fight which was about to be forced upon him should 
not only result in a victory, but should also prove 
a warning against other possible similar attacks, 
Kokop was unwilling merely to repulse the enemy. 
He wanted to kill as many as possible. He there- 
fore waited until the Utes, confident that the people 
of Walpi were still asleep, had almost reached the 
mesa top ; and then he sounded the war cry which 
was the signal for his warriors to attack the invaders. 

His cry was echoed by the party guarding the 
north end of the mesa, and before the Utes had re- 



218 KWAHU 

covered from their surprise, Kokop's men and 
Kwahu's men had rolled the heavy bowlders down 
upon them. The Utes outnumbered all the in- 
habitants of Walpi. It was the largest war party 
that had ever been sent to overcome the Place of the 
Gap, as Walpi was known among the Indians. The 
bowlders, descending with terrible force upon them, 
killed many outright and disabled many others, 
sending some tumbling down the steep sides of the 
mesa. Undismayed, however, by the surprise and 
the sudden thinning of their ranks, the Utes an- 
swered the Walpi warriors' war cries and, instead 
of retreating, scrambled with desperate haste up 
the short remaining distance to the top of the mesa. 
Although several were killed in this wild charge, a 
few succeeded in reaching the plateau. 

With stone tomahawks and wooden clubs, the 
Walpi warriors met them. There was not now room 
between the righting Indians to draw a bow, and the 
conflict became hand to hand. Hand weapons, 
bare hands, knees, feet, and heads were used. Kokop 
led his party fiercely, furiously, and soon his rallying 
war cry urged his followers on to victory. 



A BATTLE AT WALPI 219 

At the north end of the mesa Kwahu, with old 
Acmo always close at his side, was fighting bravely. 
The warriors with him, many of them much older 
than he, accepted his leadership and obeyed his 
orders without question. The unused trail he had 
been sent to guard was considered comparatively 
safe from successful assault because it was so steep 
and rocky; nevertheless, a large number of Utes 
had succeeded in reaching a point near the top 
before Kwahu and his men heard Kokop's battle 
signal and rolled their bowlders down upon their 
enemy. On the main trail there were few places 
that afforded substantial protection from the de- 
scending bowlders, but on the north trail many jut- 
ting rocks and heavy ledges served somewhat to 
shelter the Utes, and in many cases the bowlders 
struck the jutting rocks of ledges and bounced off 
into the air, passing in harmless curves over the heads 
of the climbers. When his supply of bowlders and 
stones was exhausted, Kwahu directed his warriors 
to lie flat upon the mesa top close to the edge and use 
their bows and arrows, but the light was so dim and 
the protecting rocks in the trail so plentiful that, 



220 KWAHU 

by cunning, strength, and daring courage, many of 
the Utes reached the mesa top. 

Kwahu, with a heavy wooden club in each hand, 
met the first Ute and with a crushing blow on the 
head sent him reeling to the edge, where, losing his 
balance, he toppled over and rolled to the bottom. 
Kwahu fought with hands and feet, and another 
and another fell, stunned by his simple weapons. 
But where one enemy fell, two seemed to rise above 
the edge of the mesa, and the fight was uneven. 

Old Acmo fought feebly but unswervingly beside 
Kwahu. His memory of previous battles in which 
he had been a leader gave some strength to his arms, 
but his blows lacked force, his feet lacked nimble- 
ness, and soon he was struck down by a young Ute. 
Kwahu saw him fall, and ran to him. Before the 
old man could speak, three Utes rushed upon Kwahu. 
He planted his feet astride the fallen body of old 
Acmo, and met the three Utes with a yell of defiance 
and vicious blows of his clubs. Two he felled, but 
the third was upon him before he could strike again, 
and the young man was knocked to his knees beside 
old Acmo. Before he could recover, a kick sprawled 



A BATTLE AT WALPI 221 

him upon his back and in an instant a powerfully 
built Ute was upon him, fighting for a death clutch 
upon his throat. 

Lithe and nimble though he was, Kwahu was no 
match for the stronger Ute, and as they rolled and 
scrambled wildly over the rough stones in their life 
and death struggle, Kwahu felt his strength rapidly 
leaving him. With a sudden twist of his body, the 
Ute rolled Kwahu over upon his back and pinned 
him securely there with one knee in the pit of his 
stomach. The younger warrior's muscles slowly 
relaxed ; his breath came in short, painful gasps ; 
and strange red and black specks danced before his 
eyes. His right hand dropped weakly to his side, but 
in falling it touched something hard sticking in the 
belt of the Ute. A flash of thought told Kwahu that 
it was a flint scalping knife, and with a last desperate 
effort he summoned all his remaining strength, 
snatched the knife, and plunged it deep in the side 
of the Ute. 

He had not enough strength to strike a second 
blow. 

A dozen paces away his warriors were fighting 



222 KWAHU 

with the wild desperation of men seemingly doomed 
to defeat when Kokop, followed by the main party 
of Walpi warriors, rushed to their rescue. With a 
roar like that of a wounded mountain lion Kokop 
hurled himself upon the group of almost victorious 
Utes. With both hands he wielded a great stone 
ax with terrible effect. No Ute struck by it rose 
again, but lay quiet where he fell with crushed skull 
or broken back. Even as he fought, Kokop's eyes 
sought for his son, and he called his name. Neither 
seeing him nor hearing his answering call, the chief's 
fears for Kwahu drove him into a righting frenzy 
that distorted his face into terrifying lines and gave 
such strength to his great arms that he became for 
the time an invincible human engine of destruction. 
His one idea was to take a terrible and full revenge 
for the supposed loss of his son ; and the Utes, 
frightened and awed by his appearance, stopped 
fighting and fled as from an evil spirit. 

As the last of the Utes half scrambled and half 
threw himself over the edge of the mesa in retreat, 
Kokop hurled his great stone ax after him and turned 
sorrowfully to search for signs of Kwahu. 



A BATTLE AT WALPI 223 

Close to the edge of the mesa Kokop found old 
Acmo, mortally wounded, but alive. Beside him 
lay the dead body of a once powerful Ute face down 
upon another Indian. Kokop rolled the body of the 
Ute away so that he might kneel beside old Acmo, 
and as he did so, he saw that the other Indian was 
Kwahu. 

The cry that escaped the chief's lips voiced the 
most fervent prayer of his long life. With a move- 
ment like that of a bear suddenly snatching her cub 
from danger, Kokop seized Kwahu in his arms and 
strode homeward. 

Others built a rough litter and carried old Acmo 
gently to the village. As he lay on a pile of skins 
in the home of Kokop he beckoned weakly to the 
chief and the warriors who filled the small room. 
They gathered close around him. Kwahu, now 
thoroughly revived, though smarting with his wounds, 
knelt beside the old man. Reaching out feebly 
until his hand rested upon Kwahu's knee, the old 
man said : 

" I go soon to join the Lost Others, but I leave a 
message. Honor the brave, even when their years 



224 KWAHU 

are few. Kwahu all but died fighting to save me 
when I fell. Honor the youth and — " 

The warriors leaned down to catch his words, but 
the voice of the old man faded away to a meaning- 
less murmur, and he lay back, exhausted by his last 
effort to carry his teachings to the grave. 

Kokop, Kwahu, and the warriors filed slowly out 
of the chief's house, and left the old man to the care 
of the women. 




CHAPTER XX 

AN INDIAN REVENGE 

Ala sat with Kwahu and his mother 
beside the pile of skins upon which old 
Acmo lay ; and when the aged man died, 
she helped to prepare him for burial. A 
clean blanket was placed upon the floor, 
and the body was lifted by Kwahu and 
his mother from the pile of skins and 
placed upon it. While Ala made a tuft of 
feathers and corn husks which she tied to- 
gether with thin strips of yucca fiber and fastened to 
his hair in front, Kwahu and his mother covered the 
face with a thin layer of cotton cloth "to hide him- 
self in." This had openings cut in it for the eyes and 
for the nose and was fastened on with a string that 
passed across the forehead and was tied at the back 
of the head. Next they painted black marks under 
the eyes, upon the lips, forehead, palms of the hands' 




KWAHU 15 



225 



226 KWAHU 

and the soles of the feet to indicate their further use- 
lessness. The body was then wrapped in several 
blankets and securely tied. 

Just as night cast its cloak of darkness around 
the village, like death shutting out the light of life, 
Kwahu lifted the body of old Acmo to his back and 
started down the trail to a burial place that had been 
selected a short way down the mesa in a crevice 
in the rocks. He was followed by all the men of the 
village and by most of the women. The trail was 
very steep, and the good footholds few, so that many 
times Kwahu with his heavy burden had to be 
supported and assisted over the worse places ; and it 
was always Ala who was closest to him to help him. 

Reaching the crevice grave, the body was placed 
in it in a sitting position with the face towards the 
east. Beside the body were placed Acmo's insignia 
of office, his personal fetishes, bowls of food, and a 
gourd of water ; small portions of green, red, yellow, 
and white paint in shallow, saucer-like bowls; 
arrowheads, his bow and arrows in their deerskin 
quiver ; small stones that in shape resembled animals 
and birds ; a piece of quartz crystal, and a flat green 



AN INDIAN REVENGE 227 

prayer stick with butterflies crudely painted on it 
in black. 

The crevice grave was then covered with earth 
and small stones, and a large flat stone was placed on 
top. The large stone had a small round hole in its 
center in order that the soul might escape. 

As the mourners started back to the village at the 
top of the mesa, Tabo's mother appeared suddenly at 
the head of the trail and started towards them, 
screaming and beckoning frantically to them to hurry. 

When the men met her, she was too excited to 
speak. She stood pointing up to the mesa top, 
beating her forehead with her open hands and wail- 
ing. Ala and Kwahu's mother finally calmed her, 
and she told them that in the absence of all the men 
at the burial, a party of warriors from the village of 
Sikyatki had suddenly appeared in Walpi and had 
killed Buli, her daughter, stolen corn and food, 
blankets and bows, and ill treated the women. She 
said that she had been sitting in Kokop's house 
and that many arrows were shot in through the 
doorway as the Sikyatki warriors ran past, and 
that one of these had killed Buli. 



228 KWAHU 

Ala and Kwahu's mother helped Buli's mother 
along and tried to comfort her while the men hurried 
up the trail, Kwahu well in the lead. They 
found the women and girls of the village huddled 
together in one of the kivas and on all sides signs of 
the visit of the Sikyatki warriors. Buli the Butter- 
fly was dead, and Tabo could nowhere be found. 
One of the frightened small boys at last told Kwahu 
that Tabo had shot at the warriors, and had been 
beaten by them and carried off. 

Kokop summoned all the men to the warrior kiva. 
When they had seated themselves in a semicircle 
on one side, he stepped to the clear space oppo- 
site. 

"The warriors of Sikyatki have done much evil. 
They are not of our people, but we have ever been 
friendly to them. They have planted on land that 
is ours, and we have done nothing ; they have stolen 
from our fields, and we have done nothing ; but now 
they have robbed our village and killed one of our 
children, and they must be punished. They and 
their village must be destroyed. I have spoken." 

In the heart of each man there burned a fierce 



AN INDIAN REVENGE 229 

desire for vengeance, but only the sudden tightening 
of the muscles of their necks and faces, or the clinch- 
ing of their hands, betokened their feelings. They 
all waited, silent, for Kokop to direct them. 

"Go," he said at last. "Go to your homes and 
paint for war. Sharpen your arrow points and mend 
your bows. Let each one gather into a loose ball a 
quantity of dry grass or shredded cedar bark, and 
let those who can do so bring many of the red pep- 
pers that bite and blind." 

Kwahu was the first to reach the top of the ladder. 
He was followed in mad haste by the others, all 
intent upon preparing for their vengeance. As 
he stepped from the opening of the kiva it was dark, 
but he saw Tabo limping towards him. He ran to 
meet him. 

"You are here," he said in surprise. "How did 
you come? They said you had been carried off." 

" I am here," answered Tabo, and his face twitched 
with the pain of his leg, which was sprained. " I am 
here because I crawled away while they were dancing 
and singing over their victory. I came to tell you 
what I know." 



230 KWAHU 

As he talked, the other men of Walpi gathered 
around him. 

"What is it that you know? " asked Kwahu. 

"It is that to-night at Sikyatki they end one of 
their ceremonies with secret rites in the kivas, and 
with the rising of the sun they will again come here." 

Kwahu picked Tabo up and carried him to his 
mother, who stopped moaning over the body of 
Buli the Butterfly to welcome her son as from the 
dead. Then Kwahu hurried to his own temporary 
home and prepared for what was to be done that 
night. 

He whitened his legs with clay and stained his 
body with red mud. Then he examined his bows, 
filled his quiver with arrows, making sure that the 
arrow points were sharp and securely fastened 
with sinew. From the wall he took down a fine 
wolfskin, the skin of Kwewe the wolf, that he had 
killed when a boy. This he fastened around his 
loins to impart to him the swiftness and sagacity 
of that dreaded animal. 

Ala sat huddled in one corner, watching him. 
When he was ready she went to him as he stood 




"Thus all the Men of Sikyatki Perished" 
231 



232 KWAHU 

looking down at the dim figures of the warriors 
gathering in the plaza. Her heart was heavy. 
She remembered how, only a short time before, 
she had watched him go off into the darkness and 
danger to spy upon the camp of the Utes. She did 
not want him to go now, but she knew that he ought 
to go, and she said simply, as she placed her hand 
upon his arm : 

"Wear this. It is a fetish for both of us." 

As she spoke, she took from her arm the bracelet 
of shells and stones that he had given her the day 
when they met in the woods for the first time. 
He fastened it on his wrist. Then he left her. 

Silently Kokop led the warriors towards Sikyatki. 
Kwahu walked at his side. Close to the village 
they stopped and waited until just before the gray of 
dawn. They knew that their enemies, after the 
sacred rites had been performed, would sleep in the 
kivas, as was the custom. 

At a signal from Kokop the warriors of Walpi 
ran, quickly and silently, to the kivas and drew up 
the ladders that led down into them, thus making 
prisoners of all of the men of Sikyatki, for there was 



AN INDIAN REVENGE 233 

no way of escape from the kivas except through the 
holes in the roofs. Many arrows were shot down 
into the kivas, and then the men of Walpi lighted the 
balls of shredded cedar bark and the pine twigs, full of 
pitch, that they had brought with them, and threw 
them into the kivas. Afterwards, they threw down 
many armfuls of dried red peppers and closed the 
openings. Soon the roofs of the kivas, being sup- 
ported by logs and dry branches like the roofs of the 
houses, took fire and fell in. And thus all the men 
of Sikyatki perished. 




CHAPTER XXI 

HAPPY 

While the warriors of Walpi were 
destroying the men in the kivas, the 
women and girls of Sikyatki hastily 
gathered up their few belongings 
and fled to the north. Some of the Walpi warriors 
wanted to pursue them and take them as captives 
back to their village, but Kokop would not permit 
them to do so. Nevertheless he ordered that the 
houses should be destroyed, and he permitted his 
warriors to carry back to Walpi such plunder as they 
could find. 

Upon the roof of the highest house in Walpi, 
Ala had sat during the entire night watching for 
the return of Kwahu. When she saw him, walking 
with his father in the lead of the returning warriors, 
she hurried to their house and prepared a fine morn- 
ing meal of piki, rabbit stew, a warm broth of mild 

234 



HAPPY 235 

herbs, and pinon nuts. At the doorway she met him 
and relieved him of his weapons, and of the corn, 
the eagle feathers, and the rabbit-skin blankets which 
he had brought as his share of the plunder. She 
motioned him to sit down on the pile of skins she 
had prepared, and said : 

"Thanks that you have come back safe." 

That night many fires were built in the plaza, and 
the members of the Warrior Society donned their 
kachina masks. Then, to the weird music of drums 
and reed pipes, the warriors danced a wild dance 
in celebration of the destruction of Sikyatki, and 
the priests chanted droning songs that told the de- 
tails of the fearful massacre. 

Kwahu slept late on the following morning. When 
he awoke and looked out of the doorway, he saw the 
boys of the village led by poor lame Tabo waiting 
patiently for him to appear. Ala soon prepared a 
generous breakfast, to which all the boys were in- 
vited, and when it was finished they went in proud 
procession to the house which they had built for Ala 
at the south end of the mesa. 

When they reached the new house, Kwahu 



236 KWAHU 

stepped a little to one side while the boys gathered 
around Ala. Tabo was again the spokesman. 

"It is finished," he said, "and it is yours." 

"It is mine," replied Ala, and her voice trembled. 
" It is mine, and the last stone shall crumble to dust 
before I shall forget that you built it for me." 

Then she turned to Kwahu. 

"I have said that this house is mine, and our 
laws make it mine, but it shall not be mine alone, 
Kwahu, it shall be ours." 

When the house had been examined and all its 
details explained by Tabo and the boys, and when 
it had been duly praised and admired by Ala and 
Kwahu, they all returned to Ala's temporary home. 
Then Kwahu gave to each boy a present of an eagle's 
feather, a turquoise, a bow, an arrow, or some other 
keepsake that each would prize. 

As the stars peeped out of the clear blue sky that 
night, they looked down upon a young Hopi warrior 
who stood in the doorway of a new house at the far 
southerly end of the village of Walpi. His arm was 
resting gently upon the bare bronze shoulder of a 
beautiful girl, who looked up into his face with 



HArPY 237 

eyes as clear as the sky and as bright as the stars. 
He was pointing with his free arm off to the south 
towards Awatobi, and he was speaking. 

"You ask," he said, "why this house was built 
here. I will tell you. It is because it is here that 
I kept many lonely vigils gazing off towards where 
you lived and praying that the gods might give 
to me what meant more to me than all else." 

"And what was that?" asked Ala timidly. 

"That, my shy fawn, was you." 

"The gifts of the gods do not always bring happi- 
ness," said Ala looking down. 

"The gods cannot make me more happy than I 
am now," said Kwahu seriously. 

"I too am very happy," said Ala, as she nestled 
close to him. 




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